You know the day. It's supposed to be one of your six good summer weekends, and instead the peak's gone, swallowed by cloud, with rain in the forecast until further notice.
That's when games and jigsaw puzzles (and the rest of our rainy day selection) actually earn their keep, not the sunny stretch you were counting on, but the grey day that ate into it, when everyone's stuck inside looking for something to do that isn't refreshing their phone.
A good gift for a rainy day buys someone a few hours they didn't know they needed.
Puzzle Gifts for the Days You Can't See the Mountain
Jigsaw puzzles are made for exactly this kind of afternoon, table cleared, kettle on, nowhere to be.
Soaring Over Tofino, painted by artist Dana Statham, is a bird's-eye view over Flores Island and the Wild Side trail, within the traditional territory of the Ahousaht First Nation. It's a 1000-piece build with a matte finish that keeps the glare down under lamp light, exactly what you want on a day with no natural light to speak of.
Lupines Meadow, by Newfoundland artist Diana Pinnell, is the other end of the mood, purple lupines, a wandering bear, a curious moose. Also 1000 pieces, also built for the long haul.
Paint By Numbers, For Hands That Need Something To Do
If a puzzle feels too passive, paint by numbers has quietly become the rainy day activity of choice, mostly because it asks just enough of you to be satisfying without demanding actual talent.
The RC Surf Shack Hideaway kit comes with an 11x14" canvas, 12 acrylic paints, a wooden easel, and three brushes, a beachy scene to work on while the actual beach is soaked.
The Kitty McCall Toucan kit is the smaller, bolder option, an 8x10" canvas with 6 acrylic paints, based on artwork from a designer known for bright colour and pattern work influenced by her childhood in Nigeria.
Something about filling in numbered shapes with a brush in hand makes an hour disappear without anyone noticing.
Entertaining Board Games That Last the Whole Afternoon
Rain doesn't clear up in twenty minutes, so a board game should be able to hold a table for longer than that.
Unlock! Enchanted Adventures is an escape room in a box, up to six players, sixty cards, one hour on the clock, with a free companion app running the timer and doling out hints. Three scenarios are included, from appeasing a fire god before a volcano erupts to restoring the glory of Camelot.
Catan: New Energies updates the classic for 3-4 players, ages 12 and up, with a 90 to 120 minute runtime built around a choice between cheap fossil fuels and greener energy for the island. Long enough to outlast a storm, short enough to actually finish.
Coffee Table Books for the Life You're Not Currently Living
Some days call for less doing and more looking. A good coffee table book fills that gap without asking anything of you at all.
teNeues' The Aston Martin Book traces the brand back to its 1913 founding by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, through its 1947 peak under David Brown, up to its Formula 1 era. James Bond's been driving one since Goldfinger in 1964, if that tells you anything about the brand's staying power.
Assouline's Room With a View, with an introduction by actor and travel writer Andrew McCarthy, is 95 photographs of The Luxury Collection's hotel rooms, from the Acropolis to the Arizona desert. The kind of book that makes a grey afternoon feel less like a grey afternoon.
Not every rainy day is about escaping somewhere else, though. Some are about planning the next trip out your own front door. Whistler Hiking by local author Marc Bourdon covers 56 trails between Garibaldi Lake and Joffre Lakes, with a full wildflower identification chapter thrown in. It's 300 pages of exactly the kind of planning that makes a rainy day feel productive instead of wasted.
Everything We Picked for the Grey Days
Between the puzzles, the paint kits, the games, and the books, that's most of what gets someone through a wet afternoon:
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Puzzles built around real BC and Canadian scenery, for slow, screen-free hours
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Paint by numbers kits, complete with brushes and easels, no art background required
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Board games, from quick escape-room card decks to games that run a full afternoon
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Coffee table books, for the days that call for looking instead of doing
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Local guidebooks, for planning the hike you'll take once the sky clears
Whether that's a jigsaw puzzle, a board game, or all of the above, that's what our games and jigsaw puzzles picks are for.
Browse online, or come in out of the rain at Creekside Village, Whistler, where the coffee's on and half of this is more fun to look through in person.
Did You Know?
A blind taste test with one bottle poured into different shaped glasses will convince most people they tried ten different wines.
