Puzzle Notes

Dear Friends:

Our final puzzle of the year is by the extraordinary Erin Rhode, at 2.5/5 difficulty and called "Winter Blanket." It's a 21x28(!), but as you'll see, the shape of the grid is non-standard, in that old-fashioned FUN style. Thanks also to Francis for the lovely, colorful layout.

Speaking of Francis, last week's meta brought in 412 responses, about 90% of which were correct. That's a record for us. Our two winners, drawn at random from among the correct answers, are Jessica Winter-Stoltzman and Roman Koshykar. Each will get their very own, custom-made 5x5 mini from the AVCX, with a holiday vibe appropriate to what they do or do not celebrate. The solution to the meta is attached here.

As the year ends, just one final note of gratitude to all, and well wishes, and sympathy, and determination. We'll start 2020 with a debut.

Yours,

Ben and the AVCX crew

avxwords.com // @avcxword