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Dear Miriam,
My family got into puzzles during the pandemic, and we generally saved and displayed them for posterity once we’d put them together. We’ve continued doing one or two puzzles a year. We just completed a puzzle during the holidays which was really fun, but I don’t want to hang it on the wall, and I also don’t want to destroy all the work that went into it. In addition, different family members have different opinions about whether to save it or not. Thoughts?
Signed,
Just a Jigsaw
Dear Just,
You’ve created a great family tradition of puzzling together, and you may just need to introduce some small tweaks to keep the tradition going for the long term. There’s nothing inherently better or worse about saving a puzzle versus taking it apart, so changing things doesn’t need to come with any value judgment.
Before your family starts the next puzzle, decide if it’s to save or destroy. That way, you have shared expectations going into things. If it’s to save, decide if it’s just going to live flat somewhere or if it’s going on display. If it’s to destroy, figure out a fun method or ritual that goes along with breaking it apart. Consider watching videos of sand mandalas if you want some inspiration related to destroying art that someone’s spent a lot of time working on.
If it turns out you like saving them more, spend some time as a family picking out puzzles you’ll want to look at for the long term and invest in those. High-quality wooden puzzles could be another direction to go; they’re slightly smaller and have a very different look when you display them, so it might be a nice change of pace. You could also look into puzzle-adjacent activities like paint-by-number, jewel dots, or (kind of seriously?) IKEA furniture. Some of those are not Shabbat or holiday friendly, but there still may be a range of activities your family could enjoy together that doesn’t leave you all wondering what to do with your art.
Finally, you might benefit from joining a neighborhood group where people share and pass along items. This would provide an ongoing supply of new puzzles coming in and a clear place to send them when you’re done. The whole process might not be as excruciating if part of the routine is sharing with people in your community.
You can also plan to take a picture of each puzzle you complete for a family album, complete with the date you completed it and something else memorable about the experience. Those memories are likely to be more meaningful in the long term anyway, and that’s what you should focus on.
Be well,
Miriam