Every year, my family celebrates the holidays with many different traditions, but there is one that stands out the most: Christmas clues. This tradition began with my great grandparents, who put small clues on Christmas gifts back in the 50s! Christmas clues are sticky notes placed on the front of each gift. The sticky notes contain complex messages and drawings to help us guess what is inside the gift. From riddles to scavenger hunts to games of Scrabble, the sticky notes vary in difficulty based on the family member and the type of gift. Christmas clues are a great way to spice up traditional gift giving.
My dad spends the entire month of December brainstorming and writing the clues for our presents. I love helping him come up with clues for the rest of my family’s gifts. He uses anything from diagrams to inside jokes to help us decipher the gift. On Christmas morning, as we open our presents, we try to decode the message and guess what is inside each gift. Occasionally, the more complex riddles are left unsolved until the person opens the gift.
My dad gives us hints if we are stuck, but he prefers that we figure out the clues on our own.
One of my favorite clues was a Spanish word puzzle, where my brother and I had to spell out the word “lavandería,” the location of our final gift. We ran upstairs and found our presents in the washer and dryer!
Christmas clues are our favorite family tradition, which makes Christmas a lot more fun. My family deeply cherishes our Christmas clue tradition, and we hope to continue to pass it down to future generations!