Personalized Christmas Murder Mystery Logic Puzzle, Your Friends as Witnesses, Printable PDF for Adults

A Start here page and Case No. 1 right away; a few minutes after you order, our download page has your case with 3 to 14 friends as witnesses in A4, US Letter and E-ink PDF.

Your friends are the witnesses in this printable Christmas murder mystery puzzle, and your case is ready a few minutes after your payment goes through. Type 3 to 14 names when you order and we build a case where every friend signs at least one clue and all of them stand in a register of 5,000 ball guests. The killer is a stranger: nobody you name is ever the killer, so the puzzle stays fair and nobody gets accused.

Please note: this is a pencil and paper logic puzzle for one solver or a team, not a role-play party game with characters and scripts. It is a long puzzle: the early clues mean going through thousands of rows of the register.

THE CASE
Christmas Eve, 1928. The toymaker who pays for the Mistletoe Ball every year is found poisoned in the quiet Library of the Royal Alder Hotel while 5,000 guests in costume dance under the tree. Fresh snow on the front steps shows that nobody has left. 14 to 18 facts about the killer are true, none of them gives a name, and together they leave exactly one guest. A classic style mystery: no blood and no violence on the page.

HOW PERSONALIZATION WORKS
1. In the first box, type 3 to 14 guests, each as First Last, separated by commas.
2. Optional: in the second box, type a detective name for the cover.
3. We build your case. Your friends become the witnesses, named above the clues they gave, and they appear in the register among 5,000 guests. The solution page shows which clue cleared each friend.
4. A few minutes after your payment goes through, your case is ready at arling.sk/case. Enter your Etsy order number and the surname of the first guest on your list (or your own), and download three PDF files: A4, US Letter and E-ink.

WHAT YOU GET
- Instant download: a Start here page and Case No. 1, Murder at the Mistletoe Ball, in A4 (88 pages), US Letter (96 pages) and E-ink (116 pages), so you can start tonight.
- A few minutes after your order: your personalized case in the same three formats (A4 88 pages, US Letter 96, E-ink 116).
Each case has the story, how to solve, the clues with 3 checkpoints, the register of 5,000 guests sorted by surname, and the solution with every clue checked against the killer's row. The E-ink file (157 x 210 mm) has an index page and a row of letters on every register page that jump to that letter. Both cases take place on the same Christmas Eve at the Royal Alder Hotel, with a different register, different clues and a different killer.

PLAY AS A GROUP
Split the register pages between friends. Everyone strikes out guests on their own pages, and at each checkpoint you add up your counts. Or play alone over several evenings, for example in the quiet days between Christmas and New Year.

NAMES
- First name and surname, separated by commas, up to 20 letters in each. Two surnames? Join them with a hyphen (Garcia-Lopez), or we use the last one. Titles, initials and middle names are left out; accents are written without marks (Zoë becomes Zoe); apostrophes, hyphens and surnames with van or de are fine (O'Brien, Smith-Jones, Van Dijk).
- If we cannot read at least 3 names, the download page asks you to type them again, and your case is built right away.
- We use the names only to build your case. Your files contain them and are deleted automatically 30 days after they are ready, so please save your files. The Start here file links to our privacy policy with the details.

EVERY CASE CHECKED BEFORE YOU GET IT
A computer program builds each case. Before your files are released, a second, separate program reads the printed clues and the printed register and checks that exactly one guest fits all the clues, that every clue removes at least 5 percent of the guests still in play, and that every checkpoint number is right. If anything is off, the case is not released.

WHO IT IS FOR
Adults and teens who like logic puzzles and detective stories: a Christmas or Secret Santa gift for a group of friends, a game for a winter evening, or a quiet afternoon with a pencil. Play alone, or share the register pages between friends. Text is in English.

GOOD TO KNOW
- This is a digital download. Nothing is shipped.
- You may print as many copies as you need for yourself, your family or your friends. Please do not share or resell the files.
- Other names in the register were combined at random by a computer program from public lists of common U.S. first names and surnames. It is a work of fiction.
- We have not timed how long a case takes to solve, so we do not promise a playing time.
- The Halloween case, Murder at the Lantern Ball, is a separate listing in our shop with its own hotel, register and killer.

HOW IT WAS MADE
Designed by ARLing, a small studio in Slovakia. Texts and puzzles were created with the help of AI tools. Every page is drawn in code; no AI images are used.

Digital download only; no physical item will be shipped. For EU consumers, the statutory right of withdrawal is lost when the supply of digital content begins only if you have expressly consented to immediate supply, acknowledged the loss of that right, and the legally required confirmation has been provided. This does not affect your statutory rights if the files are faulty or not as described, or any applicable Etsy Purchase Protection. If you have trouble accessing or using your purchased files, please send us an Etsy Message with your order number, file name and a description of the problem. We will help you resolve it. Please do not send card or payment details.