The First Noel (Meta)

Fun puz and awesome construction, Dave! Merry Christmas to you and yours! :D

Fun and clever. Thanks for the holiday fun, Davy and Merry Xmas to you!

I wonder if people are catching the double meaning in the prompt. The Grinch literally “deals with Christmas” - albeit in a twisted way! Abide offered that one.

Fun one, Davy. Got a little tripped up because TKOS could also be the alternate for LOST, but finally found HOTS. But quickly realized that THE GRINCK is not a thing. Thanks for the puzzle!

I has ESTO instead of HOTS, which gave me The Grince. Very nice, Davy!

An apt answer for me as I never can get things in order. I was rescued though. Thanks Dave. Merry Christmas.

Second thing I tried (first was just deleting the Ls to make new words). Cleverly done. Easy enough to pick the correct LOST match with the rest of the letters in place. Thanks. :)

A nice holiday treat! Thank you, Davy!

Loved this! So much fun!

The first themer gave me _ H _ G _ _ N _ _ which was enough to see where it was going. But because I’m obsessive, I still had to find the rest. (And because it’s fun:)

Good meta!

Loved this. When I was teaching 8th grade math the geometry unit came up in December. Parallel was tough to spell so I told my students two L’s then one L and since it was Christmas NOEL. So the unit extra credit question was PARE is the correct Yuletide spelling for what? TMI but 40 years later former students tell me that is how they remember to spell it.

Wow... great job. I was lost for a while (I know you were going for No-L but couldn't go further) but I should have seen the numbers were distinct. I kept seeing hints for the metanism but kept dismissing them until ANGIE said "Stop ignoring me!" and bopped me in the head.

Sadly ESTO (42D) conflicts with HOTS... sniff

Love the puns… are you a rising Dr. Tom?? Classic metanism! I had to reveal for the Te ___ Anton” x “Tony Gwynn” entries.. I had AMORO/SMP (guess I coulda googled).

Nice little puzzle with just enough difficulty that I had to put it down and got to experince the aha moment when I came back for a second look.

I still don't see it. For the love of god, why do must I beg you all to explain your metas.

A great way to fill the morning while waiting for the “kids” (27, 25 - home for the holidays!) to wake up! Hopefully the presents haven’t been Grinched. Great job DavyGravy. Loved the NOEL in the grid

Nice one, Davy!

Very neat meta. I'd have gotten it much more quickly if I'd noticed the numbers. Thanks and Merry Christmas.

Thanks!

Nice Christmas Day solve. Thanks!

I tired for two days to make it the WORDS, not the LETTERS. So I was not taking the missing (or new) letter, I was taking the whole new word and selecting the letters from the line of nine, and getting nothing of course. Luckily Davy himself set me free.