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Solution

Hey everyone, and welcome to Week 57!

We had a meta puzzle two weeks ago, so let’s go ahead and reveal its answer and put some of you out of your mental misery.

The puzzle was looking for an object associated with the holidays, and the five clues that featured asterisks were:

17A – [*Traditional Christmas dessert] = PLUM PUDDING

25D – [*The 1890s] = MAUVE DECADE

61A – [*Southern folk rock duo who appeared in the documentary “Wordplay”] = INDIGO GIRLS

11D – [*Chief Justice with the middle name Portland] = SALMON CHASE

40A – [*Alp apex] = SNOW CAP

The five clues features here are all two words, with the first word being a color. PLUM, MAUVE, and INDIGO are all shades or purple, while SALMON is a shade of pink, and SNOW is a shade of white. So, we have 3 purples, 1 pink, and 1 white, and combined with the title evoking both light and religion, hopefully you knew or Googled the right answer, ADVENT WREATH. The arrangement of the answers in the grid also reflect the actual candles in the advent wreath, with the purple/pink candles on the outside and the white candle on the inside.

So, some notes:

-I was aware that the white candle is not always used in all advent wreath displays, but I figured the purple/pink lead would be great enough anyway.

-It seems that not everyone is aware of the advent wreath. As a Methodist, I’ve seen it all my life, and the Internet informs me that it is used in both Catholicism and Protestantism, so I figured it was fair game.

-I always assumed that SALMON was a shade of pink, and not orange, but others interpreted that color differently, and I apologize for any confusion regarding that candle color. Would ROSE KENNEDY be a better theme answer to put there? Maybe next holiday season.

Altogether, 10 readers submitted “Advent wreath”. Sorry for the tricky meta everyone. Congrats to those who got it! This week’s randomly selected winner was Steve Blais. He will join Jon Delfin, John L. Wilson, Jim Quinlan, Eric Maddy, Andy Keller, David Cole, Roger Barkan, Patricia Miga, Erik Agard, and Charles Montpetit in a future section of the site. Congrats Steve!

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Nonetheless, this puzzle marks my fourth consecutive holiday-related puzzle, and the final puzzle of 2015. What a year it has been! I want to thank all of you who have downloaded and solved my puzzles. Nothing makes me more excited than when I see a new comment on any of the blog posts or when I get an email when you send me a note, a correction, or a meta solution.

This year, I received three puzzle honors that I treasure all the time: a win at the MIT Mystery Hunt, a “Crossword of the Month” award from Matt Gaffney, and the “joon pahk Award for Worst Handwriting” at the Indie 500. Let’s hope 2016 is even better! And maybe I’ll finally get a puzzle published somewhere for some money!

Enjoy the puzzle, and happy new year!

Chris