I'm having present panic. The kind that has you so stressed out that you just stop scrolling through gift guides and procrastinate by writing a blog instead. (Seriously though, stop recommending I buy people unicorn onesies!) My problem is that no one I buy gifts for really cares about stuff. They prefer experiences. So I always think about experience gifts. Then I end up going into Photoshop (or grabbing my kids' magic markers) and making up a fun card that says something about their cooking class or tickets to arena league football. 

When it comes to experience gifts in Dallas, we have some options. Obviously my first recommendation is a good old scavenger hunt. We offer gift certificates and can even create custom scavenger hunts for gifts for you. If you like, I'll even show up to the hunt with a big red bow on my head, like one of those cars in the commercials. Seriously, though, we can work together to make a hunt that's all about your BFF. We can work their name into it, and fill it with references to their favorite things, places, and people. We can even feature their pictures throughout. 

You know what else we can do? Custom puzzles. If you want us to create a custom puzzle for your secret Santa (wait, I guess it's the other way round?), get in touch and we'll craft a fun game that's all about them. 

And speaking of puzzles...

Blunder the Mistletoe

Those nitpickers at the IMDb Goofs section are just like Santa — always watching, and they know when a film has been naughty. With them as a resource, I’ve made a list of film flubs from nine holiday-themed films. Using just these clues, Can you identify each movie?
1. While this film takes place in 1939, the Lone Ranger’s nephew’s horse, known as Victor, was not introduced until 1943.

2. The shot of Mary Lou Retton rehearsing her tumbling routine and saying “God bless us, every one” is repeated exactly later in the film.

3. Several shots of the judge show a lamp on his desk. When the mail is dumped in front of him, the lamp has disappeared.

4. As Howard is leaving his house to find the Turbo Man doll for Jamie, Ted advises him to put chains on his tires. Tire chains are illegal in Minnesota.

5. Gruber says “Schiess den Fenster” (“shoot the window”). The correct German term would have been “Zerschiess das Fenster”.

6. When Emily is eating the spaghetti for breakfast, you can see the amount of sauce on the pasta changes between shots.

7. When Sam is being chased by airport security, at the checkpoint, in some cuts a spring board can be seen for his leap over the guard.

8. When Kate phones the Chicago Police from France, she calls them on a payphone that is a BT model that wouldn’t be found in France.

9. When everyone is jumping into the pool during the dance, the same person jumps in twice.

It's been a wild year here at DFW Scavenger Hunt, and I gotta say I'm really grateful. We've gotten off to a great start, and have already met lots of satisfied solvers. I'm thankful to the people who gave us a try, to the people who tested our scavenger hunts to make sure they made sense, and to the people who believed this was a good idea to start with. We always knew people were looking for things to do in Dallas, and we were pretty sure they'd enjoy our option. 

So tomorrow when I'm stuffing myself with, well, stuffing, I'm going to say an extra thanks. Speaking of thanks, here's a puzzle all about stuffing.

Mmmm, stuffing. Whatever ingredients you include, it’s delicious. Below are clues to 10 words that are stuffed, if you will, with the letters that spell certain ingredients. The clues and the entries are in random order. Can you fill in the blanks?

1. Levelheaded, especially in a crisis
2. Like a lumpy couch
3. Marsellus Wallace wanted his back
4. Oft-lisped vacation spot
5. Part of a Jobs uniform
6. Pip’s were great.
7. Real estate, mining, and entertainment
8. Synthetic fabric
9. 2011 film with a Wilson Phillips cameo
10. “You did it!”
​
_ N _ U _ T _ _ _ S
_ _ _ _ A P P _ _ L E
_ O N _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I O N _
_ _ P E C _ A _ _ _ N _
_ O _ Y _ S T E R
_ _ _ _ L E _ E _ K
_ _ C _ _ _ _ R _ A B _ _
B A _ C _ _ O N _
_ R I _ _ C _ _ E
B R _ _ E _ _ A _ D _

Lotta folks in Dallas are pretty perturbed to discover that we were the runners-up in the big Amazon HQ sweepstakes. I get it. I was pretty excited by the posibilities. After all, big tech companies like that love team-building exercises, right? Always looking for things to do for employees, ways to build team morale, that sort of stuff, right? Selfishly, I was optimistic that bringing in a company like that would bring in big business for companies like mine. After all, people who are new in town are always looking for ways to explore Dallas, and that's the kind of stuff I offer. 

But realistically, this is probably for the best. Especially for a company that offers pedestrian friendly activities, more traffic in Dallas probably wouldn't have been ideal. That's not to mention all the icky stuff we're learning the winning cities had to do in order to attract the business. Guess I'll have to stick to spending my money on Amazon instead. 

Hey, who wants a puzzle?

Presidential Fill-ins
In each blank below, you can insert the last name of a US president, so that when the
completed entry is split in two, you will have two common words. For example, in the
case of
S_____D (1849-1850)
Add TAYLOR to form STAYLORD, or STAY/LORD.
As an additional hint, I’ve given you the years the president (or presidents) served.
1. TUN_____EL (1797-1801) OR (1825-1829)
2. HI_____NET (1829-1937)
3. HAP_____ASE (1804-1869)
4. PIRAN_____TERDAY (1877-1881)
5. HE_____DLE (1881-1885)
6. RUS_____ER (1909-1913)
7. ORC_____EST (1921-1923)
8. EC_____WEIGHT (1929-1933)
9. PROO_____EAL (1974-1977)
10. BOX_____MINAL (1977-1981)
11. CRA_____ER (1989-1993) OR (2001-2009)
12. SL_____ZING (2009-2017)

You know what my favorite Halloween song is? "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." Every year I make a game of when I see my first holiday-themed commercial. It's usually subtle -- a truck hauling a pine tree, or red ribbon framing a scene of people eating, like, waffles -- but it's there, and it's usually sometime in, oh, late summer. In Dallas, where it's still 80 degrees in November, it can be tough to wrap (heh) your head around it. 

Having said that, it really is time to start thinking about holiday plans. Maybe you're looking at a bunch of relatives coming in and wondering how to entertain family in Dallas. Maybe you're a boss with employees expecting a holiday party here in DFW. Maybe you're looking for an unconventional gift for a fellow Dallasite. If you're considering Dallas Christmas activities, may I be so bold as to offer an option.

The DFW Scavenger Hunt offers a fun, outdoor, entertaining way to spend an afternoon with friends and family. That's right, it's outdoors. Tired of being cooped up in the house with all those crazy people? Bring them to hang out with us crazy people. We'll get a look at the lights, the decorations, and a few surprises too. 

Of all the holiday activities in Dallas, ours is the one that's going to exercise your brain and your feet. If you like a little healthy competition, we've got that. If you're looking for family-friendly Dallas activities, we've can satisfy that need too. 

Book a scavenger hunt with us today to find out how gifted you really are!

All right, here's an early puzzle to get you in the holiday spirit. 

Reindeer Games

The answer to each clue below is a word that can be formed by taking the name of one of Santa’s nine best-known reindeer, removing a letter, then scrambling what’s left. For example, “Complainer” can be answered with CARPER, which is formed by removing the N from PRANCER and rearranging the rest. You will use a few reindeer more than once, and a few not at all. Good luck!
1. Delay

2. Wood used in a lot of furniture

3. Eastern European pancake

4. Destroy, as a document

5. Unmanned aircraft

6. Video-sharing network acquired by Twitter in 2012

7. Heavy book

8. Heron relative

9. Bunnies

10. Blood vessel