Hear that jingly tiptoe overhead? That’s the sound of resolution about to slide down your chimney.
And you’ve earned it. Respondents to our New Haven Christmas riddles have definitely made the Nice List, solving an average of nearly four riddles out of seven. Two solvers, Joe M. and Kristen O., absolutely sleighed, getting all seven correct and giving themselves the best possible chance to win one of three $50 gift cards to local restaurants.
Even better, Santa’s decided to stuff the winners’ stockings this time with a copy of our new food and drink passport, The Chaser, worth up to $170 in complementary offers around town. And you know what? Whether or not they win the prize drawing, Joe and Kristen are each getting a copy, too.
Official winners will be announced once we’ve drawn and coordinated with them. Meantime, like Howard Langston in Jingle All the Way, we need to deliver what we owe you—and no, I’m not talking about an impossible-to-find Turbo Man action figure you’ll give away right after we risk our lives to get it. I’m talking, of course, about the answers.
For riddle #1—“No gifts lie under this one of its kind, itself a present to all combined”—the answer can’t be missed, at least not if you’re passing by the lower Green: the city Christmas tree. As it customarily is, this year’s was a gift to the city, from Durham couple Dick and June Porter.
Riddle #2, “Mint-free sticks swirl ’round the crease, in the icy belly of this polar beast,” proved one of the most palatable. The answer, many realized, is Yale’s Ingalls Rink, a biomorphic hockey arena colloquially called the Whale. The riddle’s sticks are in fact the players’; “the crease,” in hockey-speak, is the goalie’s domain just in front of the net, which other players repeatedly circle; the icy belly is the rink itself; and the polarity stems from the fact that this architectural beast is made to host teams (and fans) in opposition.
The third riddle, “This hotspot’s heat flies back through teeth, encircling heads like Christmas wreaths,” proved much more difficult. The key, perhaps, was to notice the cribbing from Clement Clarke Moore, whose famous poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” describes Saint Nick’s “stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth / And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.” But there were other clues leading to the popular cigar bar The Owl Shop: the notion of heat flying back through teeth, having already been drawn in (like the puffing of a cigar), plus the notable verb “flying” that nods to the bar’s mascot.
Almost everyone figured out the fourth riddle: “With claws, not Claus, and coffee for pouncing: ‘1100 adoptions and counting!’” Which clearly means the answer, Mew Haven Cat Cafe, a place to drink coffee and commune with adoptable cats, needs little explaining.
Riddle #5 is my personal favorite: “Differently spirited than Whoville’s residents, Seussian dinks keep this complex competitive.” And I “WAS merry! VERY!” to see a number of people solving it. Whoville, of course, is the Christmas-loving town in Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Pickleball, meanwhile, is the offbeat competitive sport where players use “dink” shots to throw their opponents off-beat. And Pickleville, located in Westville, is the sporting complex Whoville’s second syllable is meant to volley with.
Riddle #6 offers a second riff on Clement Clarke Moore: “’Twas the weeks before Christmas, when all through this House, round feasts came in boxes, not just for takeout.” The first half’s “House” tells you half the answer, while the second half cooks it down to a restaurant serving food that’s somehow both round and “in boxes,” even for dine-in. The answer? Pizza House, a 1963 establishment whose circular pies sport a grid of squared slices.
The final riddle, “Despite the ringing name of this cathedral of study, silver bells here would turn even Santa’s cheeks ruddy,” describes a place to hit the books where it’s embarrassing to be loud; a place reportedly “built… to resemble a European cathedral”; a place with a name suggesting even noisy silver would be welcome: Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library.
And with that, it’s time to place some presents under some trees. Gift card and Chaser winners will be contacted soon, and, win or lose, I hope you had a jolly time playing!
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
