Escape Room!

Well...Derrick and I got the crazy idea to create another escape room for my family. It's especially fun for them because Jay buys in immediately and Mom, Dad, and Jack go right along with it too. We discussed creating a bigger and better room that we could surprise all four of them with.

Last year we used the garage and Mom and Dad were in on the plan. This year, we wanted to figure out how to keep everybody in the dark until Christmas morning. It was quite a challenge but we pulled it off!

Our room at my parents house has a walk-in closet and attached bathroom that is actually broken into two rooms. In other words, we had four spaces we could use. The main issue was, it's our bedroom, so it has a bed in it! And nightstands, dressers, bathroom stuff, etc.

Well, long story short..we transformed the room on Christmas eve without them knowing. We have a
 dormer in our room so we broke down the bed and hid it in the dormer, we hung decorations, and set everything up so it was ready to go at the end of presents. We wrapped up three Christmas movies and gave them to Mom, Dad, and Jack throughout the morning. It was weird. They thought it was weird. They weren't even good movies but we told them we were trying to add to their Christmas movie collection.

Then Jay got this.

A locked picnic basket and three cut outs.

 

Those cut outs perfectly overlaid with an image on each of the movies we'd given out earlier in the morning. Each of those movies had a number that was also revealed (The Santa Claus 3, Four Christmases).  Those revealed numbers gave him the code to open the picnic basket and then it was on!

This year, the theme was Jack Frost. They were locked in Jack Frosts home theater and had an hour to escape before they were sentenced to a lifetime of watching bad Christmas films. It was so fun to watch as they realized the whole family was going to be doing it and it was also amazing to see their shock when we took them into our room and the bed was missing and it was transformed.

Oh yeah, and they started out handcuffed.

Here's Derrick explaining the rules of the room in his vintage lumberjack shirt.

To us, we'd been picturing this room for  a while and, if you know me, my visions for things are usually way bigger and more elaborate then they turn out in real life. I was a little disappointed in the room transformation but they helped me realize how much of a change it really was. I mean, they were expecting a bed in the room and it was gone!

There were movie posters lining one wall. Snowflakes hanging from the ceiling.

 
A chair facing a TV in the corner and a underwhelming movie curtain on the back wall. In my head that curtain was bigger :)

Ugh..that leg lamp! I made it with an Ebay mannequin leg and a goodwill shade because they cost $150+ online but I broke it on Christmas eve at 11 o'clock. See the number that shines through the shade when you plug it in? I broke the lights we were using but Dad unknowingly came to the rescue with a string of Christmas lights. Some hot glue and a piece of cardboard and  we were back in business but I was stressing when I broke it!

 

Waiting and watching. It is SO hard to stay quiet when they were so close to an answer but just missing it.

 

 

The pictures probably don't really make sense without explaining the whole room but that's impossible....so sorry! But I will tell you they made it out with 8 seconds to spare! A couple other of my favorite props we made were these. The battle map that Kevin McCallister drew up in Home Alone.

 

And the gigantic nest thermostat hanging in the bathroom. Derrick programmed a rasberry pi so there was a light in the middle of the nest that was blinking Morse code. It was pretty brilliant, but also really hard to de-code!

Apparently we've set a precedent and this is expected every year! I'm not sure if we can keep living up to that but we had a ton of fun pulling off and I'm glad my family buys in and participates! Derrick is the total brains behind the puzzles and I have fun with the set design and figuring out how to make what he needs for the puzzles. Turns out we make a pretty great team!