I am of the opinion that keeping these challenges as rules-light as possible is a good thing. Here’s an overview:

1. The winner of this challenge will receive $500 of personal money,* and $500 will be awarded additionally to the charity of their choosing.** Anyone may participate in the challenge, individually or as a team.

2. This challenge consists of ten increasingly difficult lateral-thinking challenges. In each puzzle, I encourage you to employ all your mental faculties— You will need them. I will leave some additional tips below that may aid you in your solving. The solutions of all puzzles will be expressed in plain, latin characters, as one continuous word, with no diacritics, tildes, or adornments of any kind. If a number is in play, it will be written in its Arabic numeral form.

   Charlotte Brontë, for example, would be expressed as CHARLOTTEBRONTE, and two-thousand-twenty-five would be expressed as 2025.

3. In solving my conundrums, you are allowed to use any resource that occurs to you. Anything from your local library to the internet to your well-meaning but misguided great-aunt (who insists that getting onto this website is itself the first puzzle) is fair game. You might even use a Large Language Model, like Chat-GPT, if you are particularly fond of having your time wasted.

4. You may work alone or as a team, but only the individual who first completes the 10th and final challenge and relays the corresponding message to me will be declared the winner. Any distribution of winnings between team members is out of my hands… So choose your friends wisely.

5. To participate, simply log in at the top right corner of the home page, and click on Christmas Conundrums 2025 from there.

6. Every participant can receive a hint by sharing the puzzles in some form on social media, or if you don’t have socials, by asking me very very nicely to give you the hint anyway. Be sure and tag @canonluter on Instagram or TikTok! Additional hints must be acquired by contacting me directly, where I will force you to answer an alternate question that I have, or do some general shenanigan, in order to secure another hint.

   Hints can be pooled between members of teams, but are capped at 5 hints total.

Additional Tips:

• Remember, I’m trying to trick you. Don’t assume that a puzzle is working the way that you immediately think it is. For example, something that looks like a word puzzle might secretly be a mathematical equation in disguise. Try to stay fluid in your thinking.

• Take breaks. Having fresh eyes on something is often invaluable.

• Notice the odd thing(s). Pattern recognition is your friend. If a phrase lands on your ears oddly; if you’re not sure something is spelled correctly; if you think the formatting of a particular puzzle is bizarre— All of these things might be intentional, and conveying crucial information. If you want to know whether something is intentional or incidental, just ask me. Look for double meanings, wordplay or historical references. You might have to learn something new to solve a puzzle. (And that’s by design!)

• Finally, remember that these puzzles are hard. Extremely hard. Being unable to solve one or all of these doesn’t mean you're a dummy. If you decide that you don’t want to compete for the prize, and just want a casual puzzling experience, let me know! I’m happy to freely give you hints (just keep that information to yourself!)

*In accordance with U.S. laws, there is no consideration required to participate, and this is a game of skill rather than chance. Only the prize element of a lottery is met. Please consult local and state regulations to ensure that you may participate where you live.

**I, Canon Luter, reserve the right to overrule the choice of charity in the event that I deem the charity to be actively harmful or ineffective in its mission. In the event of such overrule, Feeding America will act as the default for substitution. If no charity is chosen, Feeding America will receive the donation.