Pun of a Kind

  Meta #14 PDF  /  PUZ Let's try this title again, haha. 1.  Meta #13 recap #13 answer:  THE FIRST NOEL Correct entries: 23 Winners:  DrTom and RPardoe  - congrats!! Pretty straightforward: A bunch of punny phrases with the first "L" (but not the second!) of common expressions removed, which phonetically gives us the first no-L or " THE FIRST NOEL ," the answer to this meta. The bonus was that not only were there no other Ls in the grid - but there was not a single "L" in any clue whatsoever! That took...longer than I would have liked it to, haha. 2. So, suffice it to say, I'm pretty much just Mr. Meta now. Metas have an intriguing element that have captivated me, and I wouldn't be surprised if I renumber my old puzzles eventually to represent the meta aspect. Gaffney's puzzles hooked me in the middle of '20 and haven't let go since! (That reminds me...I have to do this week's!). I did not know at the time that there was such a ...

Link now public - sorry for the confusion!! PDF You can get this introduction on the first page of the PDF. Hello, puzzlers! ‘Tis the season to be solving…another conundrum by yours truly! If you feel like decking the halls with a wild enigmatic ride, then read on! This year’s challenge is a crostic (sometimes called an anacrostic), which you can see depicted on the following several pages. If you know all about crostics, fine, skip all of this – but if you want some guidance on how they work, the premise is simple (the premise, not the puzzle itself!): there are a series of [CLUE S] that you will answer (similar to those of a crossword). When you answer a clue, place one letter in each of the appropriate spaces in the [ANSWERS] region (thus, you know the length of all of the 30 answers already). Then, you will transfer these letters to the corresponding spaces in the [GRID] (note that the spaces in the grid are both numbered and also labeled with the letter corresponding to the clu...