Gisbons puzzles have been increasing their choice of Christmas puzzles over several years and are up to about a dozen winter scene puzzles that range from a very Christmas feel such as their annual collectible Christmas puzzle to a mildly Christmas feel such as the new Victorian Dolls House puzzle by Gail Pitt. Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol with it’s Victorian setting and uplifting message has perhaps had an influence on Gibsons designs. Who can forget Alastair Sim’s portayal of Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic black and white movie?

Most retail customers anticipate their new Christmas puzzles and they are the best selling genre Gibsons carry. There is a downside to such a strictly seasonal appeal and that is when Christmas is over such overtly yuletide puzzles stop selling. Some customers avoid the potential problem by not buying any Christmas puzzles at all. I believe these operators are missing out. Nobody wants to get caught with inventory that does not sell but who can argue with consumer demand that drives puzzle manufacturers to produce an ever increasing range of Christmas puzzles year after year?

christmas puzzle-shopping

This week we’ve just received a 40 foot container stacked full of Gibsons jigsaw puzzles from England. The container has almost 40 new styles for 2008 including several Christmas pictures. Gibsons have the most exciting range of really English looking images which our customers love. We’ve been busy like crazy stripping down the container and delivering and shipping the new puzzles to stores who have been calling us looking for their fall selection. This fall will easily be our best season with these puzzles as most of the other imported puzzles from Europe are the usual tired images of castles and airbrushed horses and offer no real competition to the Gibsons range of pictures. I’ve driven over 2000 kilometers this past week making sure our clientele see that we mean business by personally delivering new goods.

The Gibsons Game company is almost 100 years old. Despite not developing a puzzle line until fairly recently the company has created a range of puzzles with a decidedly English perspective through a span of time dating back to the early twentieth century and, especially for the Christmas season, even earlier into the Victorian era. Other European puzzle manufacturers compete from an increasingly weary range of stock photographs of castles, mountain lakes and air brushed galloping horses. Gibsons use only painted images which enhance the more homemade feel of the puzzles. Less dramatic but more humanly sympathetic, Gibsons puzzles appeal to the hobbyist who has an interest in the interaction of working people and the goings-on of everyday social activities through decades of seasonal occupations from spring to winter.