Ravensburger - Christmas Eve 1500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

The living room on Christmas Eve, after everyone has gone up to bed. The fire is still going, the tree is loaded, presents are stacked under it, and the animals have the room to themselves.

What you are looking at

Two cats have claimed the armchair, a labrador has given up on the rug, and a puppy and a kitten are still sitting up watching the flames. Ravensburger's own line for it is that the pets are keeping watch for Santa. Stockings on the mantel, a row of snowmen figurines above them, snow at the windows, and a glass of red left on the side table.

It is by Zorina Baldescu, and it arrived in the Ravensburger catalogue as part of their 2020 Christmas edition under article number 16558. Ravensburger renumbered their range after that, so the same puzzle carries 00717-3 today. If you have seen this picture before under the older number, it is the same 1500 pieces, not a reissue with changes.

What it is like to build

It is a night scene, and that is the whole challenge. Most of the picture is firelight: warm mid-tones sliding into shadow, with very little flat colour anywhere to sort by. A dark puzzle is harder than a bright one at the same piece count, and at 1500 pieces this is a genuine project rather than an evening.

Build the hard edges first. The fireplace surround, the mantel, the picture frame above it and the window mullions are the only straight lines in the room. Get those down and every soft thing in the picture has somewhere to attach. The stockings, the wreath and the row of snowmen figurines are the next easiest wins, because each one is a small block of saturated colour in a picture that otherwise has none.

Leave the rug and the firelight until last. The pale rug is the widest area of near-single tone in the puzzle, and the glow thrown across it shifts by degrees rather than by colour. Sort those pieces by how light they are, not by what colour they look.

Why the Ravensburger cut matters on an image like this

Ravensburger print on linen-structured paper, which scatters reflections instead of bouncing them straight back. On a picture that is two thirds shadow, that is not a luxury. A glossy finish under a lamp would throw a hotspot across exactly the dark areas you are trying to read. Their Softclick cut also means a piece sits down and stays put, so you can push a section of near-identical dark pieces around the table without it coming apart in your hands.

Specifications

A little context

A 1500 is not a weekend, and that is the point of buying it now. If you want this one finished and on the table by Christmas, the start of September is the right time to begin rather than December. It is also why we stock it deep rather than one or two at a time.

Step up from a 1000 with your eyes open. 1500 pieces is half as many again, but the difficulty does not rise by half: every piece you pick up has more possible neighbours, so the sorting stage is where the extra time actually goes. A dark interior makes that truer still. If this is your first 1500, give yourself the table for a fortnight.

More like this: our 1500 piece puzzles, the Christmas range, everything from Ravensburger, or the rest of our Animals puzzles.

Stock is real and it is in Sydney. Free shipping Australia wide over $150, and free same-day delivery inside 6 km of North Bondi with no minimum.

Built it already? Use the Questions section below and tell us how you found it. Which part fought you, how long it took, and whether you would send someone else to it. We answer every one.