The Uzzle ad: The One Present All 23 of My Grandkids Loved. Now 50% Off!

Twenty-three kids ripped open my present at the same time. Then my living room went dead silent. My oldest daughter looked at me across the room and mouthed, "I told you." Let me back up, because if you've got a big family like mine, you're going to understand this better than anybody. I'm 72. My husband, Harold, is 75, and we've been married 53 years. We had five kids, three girls and two boys, and between the five of them they've given us 23 grandbabies. The oldest is 14. The youngest is 4. Most of them are somewhere in between, and every one of them is completely different. I've got dinosaur kids. Princess kids. A boy who only wants things with wheels. A girl who draws horses on every napkin in my house. A grandson who's convinced he's going to play in the NBA, and a granddaughter who tells stories so long and so strange we've had to start timing her. I love every single one of them. But I'll tell you the truth. Christmas shopping for 23 grandchildren is a full-time job with no pay. I keep a little spiral notebook in my kitchen drawer. All 23 names. Birthdays, ages, shirt sizes, shoe sizes, favorite colors, and what they asked for last year so I don't repeat it. Every November I call all five of my kids and go down the list like a telemarketer. "What's Ozzy into now? Is Mollie still doing the unicorn thing? What size is Jagger wearing?" Harold says I run a small toy store out of our living room. He's not wrong. Now, we're not rich people. I was a school secretary for almost 30 years, and Harold drove a truck. We've got a comfortable retirement, but we watch our pennies. Every year I start setting Christmas money aside in the spring, because 23 presents adds up fast. And I refuse to be the grandma who hands out gift cards and calls it a day. I want to see their faces. I want the screaming. I want them running over to show me. But Lord, the disasters. One year I bought my granddaughter the blue puppy from her favorite cartoon. Turns out the blue one was "for babies" now and she only liked the pink one. I heard about that until Easter. Another year I spent a whole afternoon on the floor with Harold putting together a toy garage with about 400 tiny pieces. Our grandson played with it for maybe ten minutes and then spent the rest of the day inside the box it came in. And one Christmas I bought two cousins the exact same remote control truck by accident. They each accused the other one of copying. There were tears. There was a timeout. Harold had to separate them like a referee. Christmas at our house is a sight to see. Five kids, their spouses, 23 grandkids, plus me and Harold. That's about 35 people in a house built for six. I pull out every folding table we own and borrow chairs from the church. None of them match. The little ones run laps through the hallway. The teenagers act like they're too grown for all of it but keep sneaking looks at the tree. And Harold stands at the kitchen counter with his coffee saying, "We ought to start charging admission." I love every minute of it. But by Christmas night, I'm so tired I could sleep standing up. The Christmas before last, I outdid myself. I spent close to $1,500. Weeks of comparing, asking the parents, reading reviews, making sure every child got something right for their age. I was so proud. And then Christmas morning came. Some of them loved their gifts. But my grandson Ozzy opened his, said, "Thank you, Grandma," real polite, and went right back to playing with a cardboard box from somebody else's present. My granddaughter had switched favorite characters two weeks before Christmas, and I'd bought the old one. Two of the boys spent ten minutes arguing over whose toy was better. I remember standing in my living room looking at all that paper and all those boxes on the floor, and some of those presents were already forgotten before we'd even sat down to eat. I wasn't mad. Kids are kids. I just felt a little deflated. That night Harold found me at the kitchen table going through receipts. He said, "What's wrong with you?" I said, "I just wish I could find one thing they'd all actually love, instead of guessing 23 times." He laughed. "With 23 of them? You'd need a miracle." So, fast forward to last November. I'm at the kitchen table with catalogs everywhere, my notebook open, and a headache coming on. Two weeks of trying, and I'd gotten nowhere. Cason, my oldest grandbaby, is 14 now and thinks everything is "for little kids." Kambri, my youngest, is 4 and only cares about animals and crayons. Jagger is 11 and has to win at everything. Ozzy wants dinosaurs. Another one wants anything with outer space on it. Mollie's on unicorns, Emmalyn draws animals all day long, and Evie, who's 5, makes homemade birthday cards for people whose birthdays aren't even close. I said, "Harold, I can't do this again. Twenty-three different presents." He peeked over his newspaper and said, "Just give 'em all socks." I threw a dish towel at him. I told him I was serious. He said he was too. A few days later I was having coffee with my friend Laverne, who's got a mess of grandkids herself, and I started complaining. She laughed and said she couldn't even imagine 23. Then she said, "You know, my grandkids have been going crazy over this little thing," and she got up and came back with a box and dumped a pile of blocks on her table. I said, "What is that?" She said, "It's a game." I said, "Laverne, what on earth is a 14-year-old and a 4-year-old going to play together?" She explained it. Everybody gets their own five blocks. You flip a card with a pattern on it, and you all go at once, turning your blocks till yours looks like the card. Whoever gets it first yells "Uzzle!" She said, "Go on. Race me." So I did. She beat me. Then she did it again, and I laughed so hard I spilled my coffee. And sitting there wiping off Laverne's table, she told me the part that got me. "The cards come in four levels. My 4-year-old granddaughter does the easy ones, and my 16-year-old grandson can't beat me on the hard ones. And nobody sits around waiting for a turn. Everybody goes at once. The rounds are so quick that when they lose one, they just grab the next card." I started thinking. Cason could take the hard cards. Kambri could do the easy ones. Jagger would get a real race on every single card. And the cousins who never play together would all be at one table. Then I had a really crazy thought. What if I gave every single one of them the same thing? At first I thought, no. Twenty-three of the same present? Somebody's going to be disappointed. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It didn't matter that the present was the same, because every kid could play it at their own level, and for once they'd all be playing it together. It was called The Uzzle. I went home and spent the whole evening on my tablet looking at it on their website, watching how it worked, picturing each one of my grandbabies with it. Laverne said one box plays four, and a second box makes eight, so for a crowd like mine you just open more boxes. And then I did something I've never done in my life. I ordered 23 of them. Plus one for me, so I could show them how it worked. I want to be clear, that was a lot of money for me. That was my whole Christmas fund. But I'd have spent it either way on 23 different things, and some of those would've been forgotten by dinner. I had a feeling about this. The next Sunday, my three daughters were over helping me cook for a birthday party. Renita is my oldest, then Kathleen, then Twyla. I was stirring the gravy and real casual, I said, "Well, I'm done with my Christmas shopping." All three stopped what they were doing. Renita said, "Mom. It's November 9th. You're usually still wrapping on December 23rd." I said, "Well, this year I'm done." Kathleen said, "How?" I said, "I got everybody the same thing." The kitchen went dead quiet. Renita said, "What do you mean, the same thing?" I said, "I bought 23 of these little block games." And they all three busted out laughing. Not mean. Just that "oh no, Mom" kind of laughing. Twyla said, "There's going to be a riot on Christmas morning." Renita said, "Mom, why would Cason want the same present as Kambri? He's 14. She's 4." Kathleen said, "Kambri's four. She can't even read yet." And Renita said, quieter, "Mom, I just don't want you spending your retirement money on something they play with for five minutes." That one got me, because she wasn't wrong to worry. They know their kids better than I do. And for a minute, standing there with the gravy spoon, I thought, oh, Lord. What have I done? But then I remembered Laverne beating me twice, and how hard I laughed. So I said, "You girls can think I'm crazy all you want. But I raised five children and I've been buying Christmas presents for grandchildren for almost fifteen years. Let Grandma have this one." Twyla said, "Okay, Mom. But if this goes sideways, it's going to be a very interesting Christmas." The boxes came the first week of December. I lined all 23 of them up on my dining room table, and it looked like a store shelf. Harold walked in, stopped, and said, "Are we going into the toy business?" I said, "Hush." He said, "If those kids hate these, I want it on record I had nothing to do with it." I said, "You'll be picking up wrapping paper either way." I wrapped every one in different paper, so even though they were all the same, each kid had their own. And I wrote a little note on every tag. On Jagger's: "Let's see if you can beat Grandma." On the little ones: "Grandma will teach you." But the closer it got, the more nervous I got. A few nights before Christmas I actually drove to Walmart and wandered the toy aisles for 45 minutes looking for backup presents. I picked up a basketball. Put it down. Picked up a doll. Put it down. And I left with nothing, because I remembered why I'd done this in the first place. Christmas Eve, I was lying in bed and I said, "Harold, what if they hate it?" He said, "Then they'll still love you. It's not a contest for best toy." I knew he was right. But I wanted to see those 23 little faces light up so bad. Christmas morning I was up at 5:45. Cinnamon rolls in the oven, coffee on, folding tables up, ham in the fridge ready to go. I'd put all 23 presents in a big half-circle around the bottom of the tree. Harold came out in his robe, looked at that row of identical boxes, and said, "Looks like Santa got a bulk deal." I said, "You are not helping my nerves." Around 8:30 the first car pulled in. Then another. Then another. By 9, my quiet little house was a circus. Kids in the hallway, babies crying, somebody hollering about where the extra chairs went, somebody else asking if the cinnamon rolls were ready yet. I stood in the middle of it and thought, look at all this. All this came from me and Harold. Then it was time. I had the grandkids sit down. Little ones on the carpet by the tree, big ones on the couch and against the wall. I said, "Grandma's presents first. And nobody opens until everybody has one." Renita looked at Kathleen. Kathleen looked at Twyla. They knew. I started handing them out, checking every name twice. Right away the kids noticed. Same size. Same shape. Cason held his up and said, "Grandma, did you get everybody the same thing?" I said, "Wait." Jagger was shaking his like it might rattle. My heart was pounding like I was 16 at a dance. Then I said, "Okay. Go." Twenty-three kids ripping paper at once sounds like a waterfall. And then it got quiet. Real quiet. Everybody looking at everybody else, holding the same box. Cason said, "Grandma, why'd I get the same thing as Kambri?" A couple of the kids said "thank you" in that polite voice you use when you got socks. Some of them didn't know what it even was. That's when Renita looked at me across the room and mouthed it. "I told you." My stomach dropped right to the floor. I tried to explain, but there were 23 kids talking at once and I couldn't get a word in. Then little Mollie, she's 8, said, "Grandma, can you show us how it works?" Bless that child. So I got out my own box, dumped the blocks on the coffee table and said, "Everybody come here." They crowded around. I explained it just the way Laverne explained it to me. Jagger, he's 11, crossed his arms and said, "Can I beat you?" I said, "Try me." I flipped a card. I won the first one. He grabbed the next card before I could. And on the third one he yelled "UZZLE!" and held his blocks up over his head. "I BEAT GRANDMA!" And that was it. That was the moment. Mollie wanted to race. Then three more. Within five minutes, the same kids who'd been staring at their boxes like I'd given them homework were tearing their own boxes open so they wouldn't have to wait. Cason, my too-cool 14-year-old, said, "Okay, wait, let me try." He took a hard card and lost to his 8-year-old cousin on an easy one, and he laughed out loud. I hadn't heard that boy laugh at a toy in two years. The parents started opening everybody's boxes, and pretty soon my living room and dining room turned into what I can only describe as a tournament. Kids on the carpet. Kids at the folding tables. Kids under the Christmas tree. Blocks everywhere. Then Ozzy beat Grandpa Harold three cards in a row. Harold was on the hard cards and Ozzy was on the easy ones, but nobody cared about that. The kids fell over. Next thing I knew every one of them wanted to race Grandpa. Harold kept saying, "I want a recount," then, "I want a lawyer," and the kids were crying laughing. Then the grownups got in on it. My son-in-law yelled "Uzzle!" too early, and a 5-year-old called him out on it in front of everybody. And I stood there and noticed something I hadn't seen at Christmas in years. Usually after presents, everybody splits off. Each kid takes their new toy to a corner. The big ones go one way, the little ones go another. But not this year. They were all together. The older ones were helping the little ones turn their blocks. Cousins who barely say two words to each other at Thanksgiving were laughing at the same table. And Cason, the one who complained about getting the same present as a 4-year-old, was sitting cross-legged on my carpet next to Kambri, turning her blocks with her on the easy cards, and going slow on purpose so she could yell "Uzzle!" first. She can't read a word, and it didn't matter one bit. There are no words on the cards. Twenty-three kids. Twenty-three different personalities. One present. And every one of them was playing it their own way. Around noon, Cason stood up on the hearth like he was running for office and said, "Okay, listen up. Tournament. Everybody plays their own level. Winner gets the last cinnamon roll." You'd have thought he announced a million dollars. Kids scrambling. Little ones begging the big ones for help. They decided I'd be the judge. So I put on my reading glasses and walked around real serious, checking whose blocks really matched the card. "Now, is that block turned right? Is that regulation?" The kids argued like lawyers making a case. It came down to three of them finishing at the same time, and I said, "I can't pick." They booed me. Actually booed their own grandmother. Harold said, "Cut the cinnamon roll into 23 pieces." Everybody howled. Later that afternoon I was at the sink doing dishes, listening to them laugh in the dining room, and Renita came and stood next to me. My oldest. The one who'd mouthed "I told you." She looked through the doorway for a while. Then she said, "Mom, I think I owe you an apology." I said, "For what?" I knew for what. She laughed. "I really thought they'd hate it. I haven't seen them this excited about a present in years." She pointed. "Look at Cason. He's been sitting with Kambri for almost an hour. He barely talks to anybody at family stuff anymore." I said, "Honey, I wasn't sure it would work either." We both laughed. Then she said, "I spend weeks every year trying to figure out what's going to make each of my kids happy. And you found one thing every single one of them could play together." I looked into that dining room and thought, yes. That's exactly why I did it. I'm not one to get all weepy, but I'll be honest, I got a little choked up standing at that sink. I remember when my own five were little and this house was this same kind of loud. I blinked and they were grown. Now some of my grandkids are teenagers. I know it won't be long before Cason and the big ones have their own lives and aren't sitting on Grandma's carpet on Christmas morning anymore. And I thought about all the years I spent so stressed over finding the perfect presents that by the time Christmas got here, I barely got to enjoy the kids. This year, I was standing in my kitchen listening to 23 grandbabies laughing together. That's all I ever really wanted. Not something fancy. Just to see them happy at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Right then, Evie came running in with one of her homemade cards. It was me at a table with a pile of blocks and a whole crowd of little kids around me, all in crayon. She said, "That's you, Grandma. And that's all 23 of us." I counted. There were maybe nine. Didn't matter. Across the top, with Mollie's help, it said: WORLD'S BEST GRANDMA. Evie said, "I made it 'cause you got everybody the best present ever." All day I'd been worried somebody would be disappointed. And here was one of them, making something just for me. I bent down and hugged her. She said, "Will you put it on your refrigerator?" I said, "Baby, it's going right in the middle." And I walked over and put it right there in the center of the refrigerator door. A couple of the older kids were watching and smiling. Harold came in, saw it, and said, "Well, I hope somebody makes one that says World's Best Grandpa." Not five minutes later Ozzy came running in with exactly that. Harold stuck it right next to mine and pretended to be choked up about it. I think he actually was. After dinner, they were still at it, racing their parents. One of the older girls said, "We should do an Uzzle tournament at Grandma's every Christmas." And they all started arguing about the rules for next year. "Little ones get a head start." "Grandpa has to use the hard cards." So now, apparently, it's a family tradition. Around 7:30 they started packing up. Coats, shoes, leftover ham in tinfoil. The little ones were exhausted but still trying to squeeze in one more card on the way out the door. Kambri, half asleep on her daddy's shoulder, mumbled, "Can I bring it to Grandma's next time?" I said, "Every time, sweetheart." When the last car pulled out, the house went quiet. There was wrapping paper everywhere and a blue block under the couch. Harold looked around and said, "Looks like a tornado came through." I said, "One did. Twenty-three of them." We sat down on the couch, both of us worn out. Harold said, "So. You going to give 'em all the same thing again next year?" I said, "I don't know if I can top this one." Then I got up and went in the kitchen and looked at that little card on the refrigerator again. Me and nine kids who are supposed to be 23. I thought about how much I'd doubted myself. The Walmart trip. Lying awake on Christmas Eve. And what I'll remember about that Christmas isn't the money or the wrapping paper. It's the sound of all of them laughing together around my table. When I told my daughters I was giving 23 grandkids the same present, they honestly thought I'd made a terrible mistake. And I'll admit, I was scared they were right. But I learned something I wish I'd figured out years ago. I didn't need 23 different toys to make 23 different kids happy. I needed one thing they could all play together, each on their own level. Since everybody at church has been asking: the game is called The Uzzle. And it took all the guessing out of it. I didn't have to know if a kid was into dinosaurs or princesses or basketball this month. My littlest ones did need help learning it, but that turned out to be half the fun, because the big kids loved helping them. Now, I'm not going to tell you every child on earth will love it. Kids are kids. I can only tell you what happened at my house. And I wish I'd found something like this years ago. It would have saved me a lot of Decembers. If you're a grandma or grandpa with a headache every November, whether you've got three grandkids or a big brood like mine, I understand. It's hard to shop for kids who are all so different, especially when they seem to already have everything. That's not your fault. What worked for us was one game they could all race at once, the little ones and the big ones, so nobody got left out. I don't know how many more Christmases I'll have with all 23 of them under one roof. The big ones are growing up so fast. But I'll never forget that one. Twenty-three kids laughing at once. The cinnamon roll tournament. Harold demanding a recount. And that little WORLD'S BEST GRANDMA card still stuck in the middle of my refrigerator. My daughters thought I was crazy for buying 23 grandchildren the exact same Christmas present. But watching every single one of them play it their own way, I realized I hadn't given them the same gift at all. And hearing all 23 of my grandbabies laughing together that Christmas morning was worth more to me than anything money could buy. P.S. My daughters? They've stopped calling me crazy. Now they're calling me to ask where I ordered them. It's The Uzzle's own website. It's usually $60, and right now it's $30 there. If you order it on their website and your grandkids don't take to it, you get your money back within 30 days. Go check it out for yourself. 👉 https://theuzzle.com/pages/uzzle-blockwork-bundle