To wrap up 2020 with a bow and send it on its way, we put together the third version of our box game with a holiday theme, based on the seven holiday trees found in the forest by Jack Skellington at the beginning of The Nightmare Before Christmas. On December 5, 2020 we held the Competitive division event day with live hint support. Finishing teams were ranked based on how quickly they finished, plus any added time for hints. On Your Own Time division teams started later and were given built in hints. A summary of the quests and answers is below.

Box Quests

You'll Be In My Heart

The first holiday door has a red heart, representing Valentine's Day. In the box was a pink sheet of paper with red hearts that contained a series of blank spaces. Text provided on the quest page fit into the provided spaces to spell out quotes about love from various Disney and Pixar animated films. Candy hearts next to each quote indicated the letters to use from each film's title to unscramble and spell out the final phrase. Players were instructed to provide the title where this phrase first appeared.

• Final Phrase: Rainbow Connection
• Final Answer: The Muppet Movie

Pot of Gold

A four leaf clover on the door means St. Patrick's Day is next. A letter grid and acetate decoder grid were contained in the box. Teams with knowledge of the original DuckTales might have had a webbed foot up on the others. A series of clues to different episodes were provided, and the episode numbers were the key to find hidden gold.

Teams filled in the spaces on the decoder that corresponded to each of the twelve episodes in the clues. Placing the highlighted decoder on the letter grid four times, aligning the leaves of the clover in order, spelled out the final question.

• Final Question: Who is the protector of the ancient golden goose artifact
• Final Answer: Brotherhood of the Goose

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

On to the Easter egg door, where teams were given four wooden rabbit tokens and a race track inside the box. In this quest, four Disney rabbits were having a race, and teams followed the rules for each rabbit to move them around the track. A series of trivia questions established the initial set of rules for each one.

As each rabbit moved around the track, it landed on spaces that contained letters. When arranged in the order that the rabbits moved, they spelled out the final question.

• Final Question: Name rabbit from Trolley Troubles
• Final Answer: Oswald (the Lucky Rabbit)

We had a few questions during the live hint portion about how the letters were arranged. The colors of the eggs did not factor into the arrangement of the letters for the final question.

Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue

It's the patriotic part... should we stand up? Independence Day means fireworks, and this quest provided them in the form of a sheet of stars and scratch-off stickers. A wooden coin was also included to help with clearing off the stickers. Teams started at question four of a series of multiple choice questions to determine their starting point in the star field.

As teams followed the arrows through the star field, they kept track of the colors to spell out the final question by using letters from one of the three columns (red, white, and blue). When encountering another numbered star beneath a scratch-off, teams answered and followed the arrow based on their answer to continue along the path.

• Final Phrase: Parade soundtrack performed on Sadie Mae
• Final Answer: America on Parade

This is Halloween

Halloween Town is Jack's home, so of course he'd head there. For this quest, teams encountered a tricky coded message courtesy of Oogie Boogie's henchmen Lock, Shock, and Barrel. First, teams had to assemble the decoder disc from various pieces included in the box. They also received an orange paper with a grid to aid in the decoding of the final question.

A series of questions related to The Nightmare Before Christmas provided the basis for the final question. Of course, the tricky imps have made it more difficult by omitting the vowels from the decoder, so all answers were entered into the orange grid with just the consonants. The color of each answer space indicated the henchman that the decoder should be oriented to in order to land on the correct final letter.

• Final Question: Tell us the subtitle that served as a sequel
• Final Answer: Oogie's Revenge

A common error was not reading the clue for the film director's first name closely. In the movie's credits, he is only referred to as Henry Selick, but his full given name is Charles Henry Selick.

Friendsgiving

A turkey on the door means it's time for Thanksgiving. For this quest, the Disney crew are gathering together for a group potluck, and each of the friends is bringing a different dish for the feast. A yellow word cross grid in the box provided spaces to enter the answers to a series of clues. Numbered spaces on the grid provided the order of letters for the final question.

Final Question: Who do you thank for your ABCs?

Final Answer: The Phoenicians

Let it Snow

Finally, at the end we arrive at Christmas Town. A blue paper with a blue snowflake on it was included in the box. A series of images of snow from various live-action Disney films were presented on the site. When moused over, the image flipped to reveal a greeting card saying that provided additional clues to the title of the film from which the image came.

Once teams had the titles, numbers on the ends of the snowflake indicated the letters from each title to use to spell out the final phrase. That phrase instructed teams to take action to place the paper inside the freezer, which revealed the answer on the reverse side of the paper after a few minutes (just long enough to sing along to "Let it Snow" with Donald and Daisy).

• Final Phrase: Put this snowflake in the ice box before it melts
• Final Answer: Heatwave