Hints & Solutions:

Here you will find hints and answers to all of the cards--to read each hint, simply use your cursor to highlight the relevant black text.

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Card One: Merry Christmas

FIRST HINT: When it comes to presents, there are three things you need!

SECOND HINT: The design at the top of the page isn't just for show...

SOLUTION: Each gift paragraph has 3 different oddities about it--an animal name, capital letters, and an underlined word or phrase. The animal names correspond to the color of the tree ornaments, and the capital letters indicate the order in which you should connect-the-dots of that specific color (ex. chicks = yellow; ACDB = the letter 'S'). Finally, the underlined letters correspond to a specific gift from five gift pictures (in the air = the kite, the first letter in the series). Doing this for all of the list entries reveals the answer SIX PM.

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Card Two: Warm Wishes

FIRST HINT: The years go by... but our friendship never changes!

SECOND HINT: The words in the background... are those important?

SOLUTION: It's a spot-the-differences picture! Between the two photos, there are six differences--each one a different piece of clothing (hat, scarf, glove, sweater, pants, and sock). Each one of these clothes items is on top of a specific letter (ex. the sweater covers the letter 'Y'). The numbers on the bear indicate where the clothing--and thus the underlying letter--should be placed in the order of the series (ex. the sweater goes on the torso; the letter 'Y' is 6th in the series). Doing this will reveal the answer MONDAY.

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Card Three: Tis the Season

FIRST HINT: Pay very close attention to the formatting of the cards.

SECOND HINT: Colors are important. So are numbers.

SOLUTION: The calendars are crossword puzzles! The orange clues are for November; the blue clues are for December. Each date corresponds to the place where the word is entered on the calendar (ex. the 1st corresponds to the 1 on the puzzle). Then, the direction of each answer is given by the direction arrows in the lines surrounding of the clues. Solve the puzzles to reveal the missing words - for puzzle solutions CLICK HERE. Doing all this will reveal the answer FIRST STREET.

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Card Four: Happy Hanukkah

FIRST HINT: The lyrics of the song are a bit odd, aren't they?

SECOND HINT: Hey wait, those letters on the dreidels aren't the real letters! What's going on here?

SOLUTION: If you read the first letters of the song lyrics, descending vertically, it will reveal the phrase "START AT THE STARS, THEN FOLLOW DIRECTIONS." The letters on the dreidels correspond to different compass directions! What you'll want to do is use the song numbers (ex. 4 heavenly hamantaschen) to locate a candle on the menorah. This will point you in a specific direction (the 4th candle points to the W-facing dreidel). Then match the color of the song lyric to the color of the star, and trace out these directions (ex. the red-underlined song numbers are 4225, which correspond to WNNE. Which will get you the letter 'C' when drawn). Do this for all the song lyrics to reveal the answer CADILLAC. (SEE ANSWER HERE).

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Card Five: Delicious

FIRST HINT: Aunt Dotty. That's an odd name...

SECOND HINT: This recipe is a mess! But when you're fixing it... don't forget about the steps.

SOLUTION: Aunt Dotty? It's a Morse Code puzzle! Translate each of the cookie-sequences into Morse Code. Then, to get the order of letters, put the recipe into its correct chronological-order, while keeping the step numbers as they originally were (ex. STEP 7 is "Enjoy your cookies!"; chronologically this step should take place 9th in the cooking-process, meaning that "7" is 9th in the series. CLICK HERE for the complete answers). Looking at the steps of this new list now gets you the string of numbers: 632951847. Finally, look up each of these numbers on the Morse Code list (The first number, 6, corresponds to -.-. meaning that the first letter of the answer is C). Do this for all of the numbers to get the answer CHASE BANK.

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Mysterious Numbers

NOTE: This puzzle can only be solved once you have found the answers to the 5 previous puzzles.

FIRST HINT: Each card has its own answer... each card has its own set of numbers...

SECOND HINT: Maybe the numbers can be combined in some way?

SOLUTION: It's one last meta puzzle! The numbers on the back of each card correspond to that card's solution. More specifically, it refers to the location of a letter in the card's answer (i.e. if there is a number '3' on the back of the 'FIRST STREET' card, it is referring to the 3rd letter of FIRST STREET, or the letter 'R'). Locate each of these letters and fill in the blanks for each card, then combine ALL of the five card-backs to form the phrase "HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM DAN C"

Happy holidays, everyone!