Bob’s 2024 Christmas Bonus Puzzle

North Pole Knights — Twelve Days

The checkered board shown below contains thirteen hidden phrases. The letters in each phrase are connected, in sequence, by a series of chess knight’s moves. In chess, a knight moves in an L shape. It starts by moving two spaces in any direction — up, down, left, or right — then without stopping turns and moves one space at a right angle to that.

     

For example, the diagrams below shows the letter tiles used for the phrase TWELVE DAYS. The path begins with the magenta-circled letter.

     

Twelve other phrases are hidden on the board. Each belongs to a category hinted at by the revealed phrase TWELVE DAYS.

Every space on the board will be used and no space will be used more than once. You may find it helpful to cross off spaces as you use them.

Alternative Solution Method

If you don’t feel like Don Quixote and aren’t keen on the whole knight business, you might try cutting up the squares and anagramming the 170 tiles (without T, W, E, L, V, E, D, A, Y, S and the empty tiles) to find the four phrases. Letters in any phrase will necessarily alternate between black and while tiles.

Solutions (don’t look if you don't want to see them!)