The title of the puzzle is “One Dollar”, but if you order right this minute, we can give it to you for the low, low discounted price of…. What’s that? We’re giving it away for free? Oh! Well, I guess I can’t offer you a discount then. Never mind. One the other hand, this week’s puzzle gives you 33% fewer “d”s than last week’s. Can we market it as a diet puzzle?

Title: One Dollar
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Title: Warped
Difficulty: Thursday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Unlike our offerings over Christmas and Thanksgiving, this December 31 edition of Beekeeper Crosswords is actually a holiday puzzle. Happy “end of the oughts”, and let us look forward to the terrific tens.

Crossword puzzle makers are in a constant struggle to keep their offerings fresh and topical. Some of us, alas, are far more likely to include DAG Hammarskjöld or NGO Dinh Dimh than Lady GAGA or JAY-Z. Thus, it is with some pride that I find myself able to include references to the underwear bomber in a current crossword. Likely this isn’t the first such crossword appearance, but I like to think I made the top three.

Title: Precedents
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

“

Once again we celebrate a holiday tradition by giving you a puzzle which has absolutely nothing to do with the holiday it accompanies. If you are already bored to tears by egg nog, tinsel, shopping, Dickens, bell ringers, and (most of all) Xmas themed puzzles, then you’ve come to the right place. We’re here to give you a puzzle just like you’d get any other day or week of the year. How can you beat a deal like that?

Title: Tat Away
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

It’s frequently noted that there are very few new crossword themes. Many puzzles are simple variants on a standard theme type, and often you will find that two completely independently conceived puzzles have practically identical theme entries. This puzzle has one of those themes that you’d expect to show up periodically, so I had to do some checking. I’m proud to say that while similar puzzles have been done, (AFAIK) none has used quite this form of theme. Better yet, as far as my research has turned up, none of my theme entries has appeared in any other puzzles (as theme or normal entries). Now all I have to do is figure out how to put the non-theme entries on a diet: go a month without filling up on junk food like OREOs, OLEO, COLA, SPAM, and AGAR GEL.

Title: Nice Try
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

When you are doing a titled crossword puzzle (as the NYT does on Sundays but not on weekdays), it’s sometimes a challenge to make the title reflect the them of the puzzle without giving away too much info. However, if you are lucky you can use it instead to inspire and provide coherence to the puzzle. This is one of those — I chose the title first, and then forced the rest of the puzzle to conform to the provided template. The result may be an “oh, yeah” moment, or a “yeah, just as I expected” reaction, but it should come out feeling like a complete well-rounded package.

Since this blog, and all the free puzzles on it, exist largely to promote a product, I should point out that the CrossFire Crossword Maker made it particularly easy to execute a theme of this sort. Since circles and rebuses are supported at every level, it was trivial to add the circles and include them in the .PUZ files and printable images. Further, the powerful word search features made it easy to find just the right entries to make an interesting theme. (Needless to say, it was also invaluable in building the grid, filling it, and creating a good set of clues.) If you’ve found yourself looking at our humble offerings and saying: “I could do better than that”, why not download a trial copy and try doing just that. It’s probably easier than you think.

Title: Social Circles
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Title: Isn’t It Time?
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

I want to take this opportunity to wish all of our US readers a happy Turkey Day, and all of our other readers a happy random Thursday in November. In celebration of this, we are pleased to offer a puzzle that has absolutely nothing to do with Thanksgiving, turkeys, cranberry sauce, or football. Thus, when you’ve stuffed yourself on stuffing and are up to your gills in gravy, why not take a break and enjoy a nice quiet crossword — it might aid your digestion.

Title: Take Care
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

I’m flying without a safety net on this puzzle. Not only am I cheating on little details like not making the grid a proper “industry standard” 15×15, but schedule issues kept me from sending this off to be reviewed. Thus, you’re trusting in just my own taste in clues without any independent verification. Lets just hope that I didn’t reference the wrong variety of fringed Brazilian lizard or misspell an Etruscan deity in my impatience to get the puzzle published.

Title: Escapades
Difficulty: ???
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

The theme is simple, the execution is not. We continue to press our luck with a collection of annoying, esoteric, and punishing clues for both new and exotic grid fill. Hopefully it will appeal.

Title: Keeping Count
Difficulty: Thursday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)