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.

Gibsons puzzles are developing an ever expanding range of Christmas puzzles in their catalogue. The themes are of the old fashioned variety sometimes dating back to the Victorian era. The winter season with all its activities such as skating and snowman building as well as Christmas shopping are all included. Gibsons have also been increasing their selection of extra large jigsaw puzzles with the primarily English Christmas season as the main theme. This will allow both grandparents and grand children together to assemble the brightly colored and easily identifiable puzzle pieces on the kichen table over the winter holiday period. 

Jigsaw puzzles are apparently one of those products that, although, not unintentional, were never deliberately created for the hobby marketplace they now serve. John Spilsbury was a London mapmaker from the middle of the eighteenth century who had the idea that painting a world map onto a piece of flat wood and then cutting it into various countries and continents would prove a  useful teaching aid for children. By using a jigsaw which would allow for an intricate cut Spilsbury was able to saw out one-off and not particularly well fitting jigsaw puzzles.nThe puzzle would then provide a tool for small motor skills as well as a geographic reaching device. Wooden puzzles today are extremely rare and expensive and have been replaced by cardboard puzzles which are cheaper to produce, fit better and can have thousands of pieces to cater to the most avid puzzle hobbyist. Puzzle pieces tend to now have a familiar range of shapes with knobs and holes that fit into one another smoothly so long as the correct pieces are put together.

These tightly fitting pieces are referred to as fully interlocking which means that once correctly assembled the puzzle section is a tight and snug (and unique) fit.  Puzzles are still considered teaching aids and are made for children usually with large pieces for easy identification. Extra large jigsaw puzzles pieces are also now widely produced for older puzzlers whose hand and eyes are not as sure as they once were but still enjoy a good jigsaw puzzle challenge.