A Christmas tradition, from 1973

Christmas was a big holiday for my Dad: each year, he’d send out custom Christmas cards with obscure messages. He’d look forward to the phone calls that would result – people asking for hints, or badgering him for the new low of that year’s wordplay. He’d usually chide them (truthfully) that I’d gotten the answer in only a minute or so - I think my fondness for solving puzzles was inherited from his fondness for creating them.

It’s been 35 years since the first of these cards - I’m starting a new tradition, posting them here for the holidays. Here’s the first one.