They make a quiet break between the wrapping and the cooking, and a printed set travels well to a relative's house for the slow hours after lunch.
The gift exchange logic grids
All six logic grids share one story: The Office Gift Exchange. A group of coworkers takes part in the office Secret Santa, and the clues tell you, a little at a time, which gift each one gave, the paper it was wrapped in, how much they spent and when they arrived. The smaller grids use fewer of those categories. The set climbs gently, from a 3×4 grid up to a 5×5, with two easy, two medium and two hard.
The easy ones need only direct clues and carrying facts from one block to the next. The medium pair adds either/or clues and simple comparisons, and the two hard grids bring exact differences, such as one coworker spending exactly four dollars more than another, that have to be chased across the whole grid.
Twelve picture nonograms
Each nonogram is a picture we drew as pixel art: a gift box, a candy cane, a snowman, a Christmas tree, a bell, a star, a snowflake, a wreath, a stocking, a bauble, a reindeer and a gingerbread man. Four are 10×10, seven are 15×15 and one is a 20×20.
Nine of the twelve are easy, so this is a friendly place to try nonograms for the first time. Two are medium. The 20×20 is expert, and at one point it needs a probe: assume one cell, follow the consequences until a line breaks, and the cell must be the other way.
If you're new to nonograms
Shade cells so that each row and column matches its numbers. Each number is a block of consecutive shaded cells, in order, with at least one gap between blocks. Begin with the biggest numbers: in a 10-wide row, a 7 must cover the middle four cells however you slide it. The how to solve nonograms guide takes it from there.
Mark the cells you know are empty with a cross as you go. On a picture puzzle it feels slower, but the crosses are what let a half-finished line tell you where its remaining blocks can and can't go, and most stalls on an easy grid come from a missing cross rather than a missing idea.
Printing for the holidays
The printable set for this page holds four of the gift exchange logic grids in one PDF, answers on the last pages. Every nonogram can be printed from its own page with Print PDF, and the printable nonogram packs have more grids for the rest of the year.
For more of either type, the nonograms and logic grid puzzles pages each have dozens more at every level.