Daft Musings

by Carolyn Bickford

Menu
  • Seven Years Gone and A Pandemic In Between (Tales of an ex-Californian in Tennessee)
  • Share Your Craziest COVID Memories Here
  • The COVID Masks
  • Old Journalistic Ethics vs. Social Media Screeds (updated below)
  • About Me
  • Privacy Policy
Menu

Our 2008 Christmas Treasure Hunt

Posted on December 29, 2008 by cjbickford

It’s become our family tradition to hide each others’ gifts and set up clues in order to find them. This year it was my turn to hide Peter’s presents. I tried hard to keep it easy, but not too easy. When the clues are too hard to figure out, it frankly gets frustrating for everyone. But if they’re too easy, the game’s over almost as quickly as it began. But I figured I could count on Neil’s classical-style education to help Peter through clues he might not know intuitively.

I put one present for Peter and Neil, the laser strategy game Khet, under the tree. On it was an envelope containing the first clue:

venividivici

I thought Peter and Neil would almost immediately go to where the next clue was, in Neil’s history book, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul. But they put too much thought into it. The Gaul were mainly French, right, so did we have any French books? Could it be found in a Latin text? All the Asterix and Obelix comics (in various languages) got a through look-through, until I finally hinted it had to do with the Gallic Wars. The next clue, hidden in the text’s pages was:

eat-green-eggs

I knew Peter and Neil would recognize “green eggs” right away because I’d been drooling over the Latin version of Green Eggs and Ham all Christmas season–and Peter gave it to me. “Cenabis” was the lame Latin I had to come up with myself, which means “We will dine.”

As soon as they’d translated the cartoon, Peter and Neil found my green eggs in the refrigerator. The night before, I’d mixed alum and vinegar and written the next clue on the eggs. It’s supposed to soak through the egg shell and imprint on the egg white of a boiled egg. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, so I had to give them the next clue directly:

In tympanum est.

Peter immediately knew this meant it was in a drum. He and Neil searched all the percussion instruments in the house until he found Neil’s Mathematica book (another present) on a drum in a drum case. Neil, our resident mathematician, loves codes and ciphers, so I gave them this one:

playfair-cipher

It’s a playfair cipher with “virent ova” as the key. But wouldn’t you know it: Neil translated the key, and tried solving the clue with “green eggs” as the key. That resolved into gibberish, which Neil tried to use anyway: was it a scrambled clue, or hold a message within it? Peter tried it with “virent ova” but he didn’t quite understand the mechanics of the playfair cipher and got it wrong as well. Finally, he figured it out, and read:

How Abbe Faria discovered the treasure map

Neil just read The Count of Monte Christo last year, but he was as baffled as Peter was. They had to figure out where Abbe Faria come from and then brush up on the great novel. For the rest of you who haven’t read or don’t remember the details of The Count of Monte Christo, the treasure map was written in hidden ink on a bookmark inside a breviary. The map was revealed only when the Abbe was about to throw the bookmark into the fire and the heat revealed the message.

I’d placed a bookmark in Neil’s Mathematica book. The night before, I’d written the next clue in lemon juice on a bookmark, but the letters had browned instantly. So instead I used milk for the secret ink. It worked just as well, but it takes more heat to make the message come out. Nevertheless, Peter and Neil, through various methods, Peter and Neil got the bookmark heated up enough to reveal the words:

INSIDE PRINTER

Inside our printer was a present with this written on the wrapping:

date

and a desktop calendar I’d bought when I was in Germany. The date was in European style, and it was easy to find on the date in the calendar:

diederdas

And on the other side, the answer:

sesamestreetsong

Both Peter and Neil speak German well enough to understand that it referred to the Sesame Street song. Behind the Sesame Street’s 25th Celebration DVD I’d hidden the next present: a Blu-Ray version of Life of Brian, the Christmas (Brian-mas?) story for our geek farm.

On there was the last clue:

stairway-to-heaven

Neil immediately recognized the pre-Germanic runes from his German/history lesson, and transposed them to the clue: Stairway to Heaven. I was afraid it might get the boys into a Led Zeppelin jag, or trying to read meaning into the lyrics of “Stairway to Heaven.” But maybe a sarcastic comment I made about stoner Led Zep fans sent Peter immediately in the right direction.

He climbed the stairs to our attic and found a video game based on a movie we all recently saw and loved, Bolt.

All in all, the treasure hunt took just under 2 hours, and all had fun doing it.

Category: Daft Musings Education Germany

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Seven Years Gone and A Pandemic In Between (Tales of an ex-Californian in Tennessee)
  • Perspectives on Theranos 2: Some Good Ideas
  • Perspectives on Theranos: Silicon Valley Kool-Aid Culture
  • COVID Vaccines in 100 Days or Less
  • The Fun of Unscientific Social Distancing Markers

Recent Comments

  • George Haberberger on Concern Trolling Control Freaks
  • Roll With It: Diving into 2021 – Daft Musings on Hippie Hiking Adventures in TN
  • cjbickford on Performers and Audiences in the Pandemic Looking Glass
  • George Haberberger on Performers and Audiences in the Pandemic Looking Glass
  • George Haberberger on Destroying People and Freedom with the Power of the Perpetually Offended

Archives

  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • November 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • August 2019
  • February 2019
  • September 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • August 2017
  • February 2017
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • February 2016
  • October 2015
  • June 2015
  • January 2015
  • October 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007

Categories

  • art & fashion
  • Cult of Personality
  • Daft Musings
  • Death
  • Death to COVID
  • Education
  • Environmentalist Ramblings
  • Germany
  • Holiday Ideas
  • How Covid Changed Us
  • Idiot Thieves
  • Local Lore
  • music
  • Nashville
  • Our Amazing Cross-Country Road Trip
  • Out & About
  • Parking It
  • Parties
  • Pointless Complaining about Gas Prices
  • Religion
  • San Diego Comic Con
  • Southwest Tour 2014
  • Taxes Suck
  • The Next Great American Band
  • Travelling
  • Uncategorized
  • Yukky Medical Stories

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2025 Daft Musings | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme