It's the Holiday season. As everything around us continues to adorn itself with bright lights and red, white, and green, I want to take a moment to tell you a modern Christmas tale.
So, get comfortable. Call dibs on grandma’s rocking chair, place it near the fireplace, tuck yourself into your favorite plaid blanket, and pour yourself a cup of hot cocoa. You can even get a little crazy and drop tiny marshmallows into your cup ... it'll be our little secret.
A majestic holiday tale
To be honest, this isn't exactly a Christmas tale, but rather a tale of Three Kings, or as they say in Spain: un cuento de Reyes. My wife is originally from Spain, and traditionally, they celebrate the Epiphany or (Dia de Los Reyes), rather than Christmas. It’s similar in many ways, respecting a traditional end-of-year holiday triptych: a family gathering, too much food, and presents for all.
Every year I join my wife and her family to celebrate this special day together. So, on the 6th day of 2020, filled with a general lightheartedness for the year ahead, and our bellies full with exquisite jamón and bubbly Cava, it was finally time for the family to gather around the tree and open presents. The younger ones were quick and began tearing shiny wrappings joyfully, unveiling trucks and dolls. But after all their presents were opened, still there remained a mystery box, untouched. As the curious eyes inspected the box, they saw my wife’s name on it: Rebeca.
As she started opening it, all the shouting stopped, as everyone watched, young and old, in silence. "What was in the box?"
Like looking for a needle in a (manger's) haystack
Upon opening it, they all realized it was like nothing they'd ever seen before. Inside, there was an assortment of odd-shaped pieces in various colors. This, was accompanied by a singular post-it note.
Now, maybe you're a fan of puzzles. Maybe you're not. But my wife adores them, and with the content's inside this box, it seemed as if the Kings’ elves played quite the thrilling trick on her.
My wife removed the pieces from the box and looked again at the post-it note. She saw the scribbled drawings of a puzzle piece, an "End" sign, a camera, and a phone. I thought it was clever. Alright, it was probably not as major as Archimedes’ discovery, but my wife shouted 'Eureka!' when she understood what the scribble meant: Solve the puzzle first. Then stop and take your phone out and take a picture.
Everyone quickly made room at the dinner table and pushed the dirty plates and champagne glasses away. This puzzle was serious business.
After a couple of minutes, every piece of the puzzle found its place in the masterpiece.
It was a familiar image. As the post-it instructed, my wife took her phone out and aimed it at the finished puzzle, ready to discover the revelation of her present.
Side note: I want to pause from this holiday tale for a second to thank the engineers, designers, and everyone at Apple that contributed to building the iPhone, an undoubtedly incredible piece of hardware. Thanks to their detail and craftsmanship, they gave life to this scrappy homemade puzzle and turned it into an interactive object. The phone's camera detected the QR code, which redirected my wife to a URL hosted on Glitch.
There was still no sign of an actual present. What is this foolery?! Eventually though, the URL on the Glitch app redirected to a typeform that contained yet another cryptic message.
These elves must be jokesters. The whole family—five adults and three kids—were now gathered around the table, curious to discover the next part of the puzzle.
The typeform uncovered a riddle:
“If you are running in a race and pass the person in second place, what position are you in?”
The group agreed on the same answer in a snap: “You become first!" They all agreed this was so easy, and begged for the next challenge, moving on to the next question. This next question, was quite popular on Twitter at the time.
“Someone's mom has four sons: North, East and West. What is the name of the fourth son?”
Excited, they responded quickly and unanimously, as I expected, and they quickly moved to the remaining riddles.
The final riddle on this typeform came from a riddle site for kids:
“Black inside. Black outside. Just like my heart. Black wood, who am I?”
A breeze, right? Well, you should have seen their faces when the typeform results read: “Whoops, you have 0 correct answers. Start over.” Sneaky little elves!
The adults gathered closer for a huddle. They equipped themselves with pen and paper and put their heads together, drawing and trying hard to figure out where and how they went wrong. This lasted more than an hour. All the while, no one bothered to stop and listen to my 9-year old nephew, Victor. He had discovered all of the correct answers!
A cherished Kissmas present
Only after running out of options did the adults turn their attention to the littlest one. Once they realized the typeform accepted all of his answers, the tenor of excitement commenced. All celebrated the little prince that redeemed them and helped uncover the true meaning of my wife's present.
And just like magic, the iPhone beeped and an SMS popped onto the screen. There were muffled grumblings in the crowd, all wondering if it was yet another puzzle. The text however, contained a singular link, which opened into the Wallet app. Finally, the gift was revealed: tickets to see KISS's "End of the Road" world tour at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA.
And this is the miracle of the holiday season. To give joy and magic to those we love. Sure, I could have just printed these tickets out and handed it to my wife in an envelope. Added a bow around the wrapping paper for the sake of anticipation. But if I had done it that way, we would not have had this incredible family experience, where everyone contributed and participated in the joy. This experience truly created a lifetime of memories for all of the people in the room. And all thanks to a few minor, non-techy creative approaches.
In case you're wondering, the concert was a blast! This show was on March 6th, 2020. On March 7th, we were all giving our shelter in place orders for COVID-19 in the Bay Area. This concert is the last anything we attended in 2020. Technology does not need to be difficult. It can be fun, easy. And it will spark joy and give life to the silliest ideas you may have. I hope you can explore those ideas and build more meaningful hacks!
Oh, and in case you're wondering, the answers to the riddles in order, are: second—what— an olive.
Happy holidays!