Christmas Jigsaw Puzzles

Snowy farmhouses, sleigh rides and crowded skating ponds: winter pictures to put together this Christmas, from hand-colored Currier & Ives prints to paintings by Claude Monet and George Bellows. Every one is free, in 12 to 150 large pieces, and from December 1 to Christmas Day, today's jigsaw is one of these pictures.

Start a Christmas puzzle

Choose a picture

Central Park, Winter: The Skating PondCurrier & Ives, after Charles Parsons, 1862
Currier & Ives published this crowded skating scene in 1862, from a painting by Charles Parsons.
Winter Morning in the CountryCurrier & Ives, 1873
A two-horse sleigh carries a man, a woman and four big milk cans past a snowy farmhouse.
Winter Scene in PhiladelphiaAttributed to John Lewis Krimmel, 1811–13
The columned building is the First Bank of the United States, finished in 1797 and still standing in Philadelphia.
Skating in Central Park, New YorkAfter Winslow Homer, 1861
On Christmas morning in 1858, an estimated 8,000 people came to skate on Central Park's Lake.
The Farmer's Home—WinterCurrier & Ives, after George Henry Durrie, 1863
A man in a red jacket carries hay to two cows in the shed while chickens wait under a bare tree.
Red School HouseGeorge Henry Durrie, 1858
Children play around a one-room schoolhouse with snow on its roof.
Sleighing in New YorkThomas Benecke, 1855
The view looks east across Broadway, past Barnum's Museum, with the street packed with sleighs.
Central Park in WinterCurrier & Ives, 1868–94
James Ives became Nathaniel Currier's partner in 1857, and their firm lasted until 1907.
Skating on the WissahickonJohan Mengels Culverhouse, 1875
Skating scenes were among Culverhouse's favorite subjects; ten years earlier he had painted skaters in Central Park.
Approach to ChristmasGeorge Hunt, after James Pollard, undated
George Hunt engraved this hand-colored print from a picture by the English artist James Pollard.
The Farm-Yard in WinterCurrier & Ives, after George Henry Durrie, 1861
It is one of the first prints Currier & Ives made from Durrie's paintings, in 1861.
American Winter Scenes: MorningFanny Palmer, for Nathaniel Currier, 1854
Palmer drew it, and Nathaniel Currier printed and published it in 1854, three years before James Ives became his partner.
Love of WinterGeorge Bellows, 1914
Bellows liked to paint snow at least once a year, and in January 1914 he complained to a friend that it hadn't snowed yet.
Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect)Claude Monet, 1890–91
The wheat stacks Monet painted stood 15 to 20 feet tall just outside his farmhouse at Giverny.
Sandvika, NorwayClaude Monet, 1895
Monet traveled to Norway in 1895 and painted 29 Norwegian scenes in two months.
Rabbit Warren at Pontoise, SnowCamille Pissarro, 1879
Pissarro painted nearly 100 snow scenes in his career.
The Winter SunGeorge Gardner Symons, about 1909
Symons was born in Chicago and probably studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Evening Snow at UchikawaUtagawa Hiroshige, c. 1836
It comes from Hiroshige's series Eight Views of Kanazawa, made around 1835 and 1836.

Currier & Ives, and the winters they made famous

Currier & Ives was a New York firm that sold prints of American life. James Ives became Nathaniel Currier's partner in 1857, and between 1840 and 1890 the firm published more than 7,000 different prints. They were printed in black and colored by hand, by women working like an assembly line, each adding one color, and they sold for between 5 cents and $3 depending on their size, so ordinary families could hang them at home.

Many of the best-loved winter scenes came from paintings by George Henry Durrie of New Haven, Connecticut. Currier & Ives began publishing them in 1861, with prints such as The Farm-Yard in Winter, and made ten in all, four in his lifetime and six after his death in 1863. Fanny Palmer, who came to New York from England in 1844, drew more than 200 prints for the firm, among them American Winter Scenes: Morning.

Skating was the great winter outing. Central Park's Lake, first called the Skating Pond, was the first part of the park to open, in the winter of 1858, and on Christmas morning that year an estimated 8,000 people came to skate on it. Two of our pictures show the crowds there.

How to play

Tap a picture above, then drag the pieces onto the board: a piece snaps into place when you drop it near its spot, and pieces that belong together join up. Choose from 12 to 150 pieces in Settings (12 or 24 are easiest on a phone), and use Hint whenever you're stuck. New game picks another Christmas picture. Our full instructions and jigsaw puzzle tips have more.

Questions

Is there a Christmas jigsaw every day in December?

Yes. From December 1 to Christmas Day, today's jigsaw is one of these pictures, the same for everyone that day. Finish it to keep your daily streak going.

Are there other Christmas puzzles?

Our printable Christmas puzzle pack has a word search, a word scramble and a crossword in large print, with the answers at the back, and the Christmas word search prints on its own.

Where do the pictures come from?

They're public-domain works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Gallery of Art, which share them for anyone to use. None of the museums has endorsed this site.