Looking for Sunday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:
I hope your Christmas shopping is done or mostly done, because there’s not much time left before the Big Day. It’s the eve of Christmas Eve, and then Santa arrives with his gift-laden sleigh. The New York Times must be in the festive spirit, because this is the second day in a row with a Christmas-themed puzzle. That’s a hint, by the way, even if I think it’s all rather obvious from the theme.
Strands is the newest game in the New York Times’ stable of puzzle games. It’s a fun twist on classic word search games. Every day we’re given a new theme and then tasked with uncovering all the words on the grid that fit that theme, including a spangram that spans two sides of the board. One of these words is the spangram which crosses from one side of the grid to another and reveals even more about the day’s theme.
Spoilers ahead.
Today’s Strands Hints
Today’s Theme: Pass the eggnog
Hint #1: Think of your taste buds.
Hint #2: These are long, compound words for the most part. Look for the individual words (or morphemes) that comprise the longer words and go from there.
To help you uncover all the words, here are the first two letters of every word, including the spangram.
Remember, spoilers ahead!
What Are Today’s Strands Answers?
Today’s spangram is: HOLIDAYFLAVOR
Here’s the full list of words:
- GINGERBREAD
- CRANBERRY
- PEPPERMINT
- COCOA
Here’s the completed Strands grid:
Today’s Strands Breakdown
It’s rare to find the spangram on the very top like this, and even though I found HOLIDAY right away, I didn’t piece together the full word until I’d knocked out several others. The tricky thing about today’s Strands was just how long most of these words, making it a bit harder to find the entire thing. I found BREAD long before I found GINGERBREAD. Once I’d snagged CRANBERRY and PEPPERMINT things got considerably easier, though, and there were only a total of five words so that made it a bit easier as well.
How did you do on your Strands today? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook.
Be sure to check out my blog for my daily Wordle guides as well as all my other writing about TV shows, streaming guides, movie reviews, video game coverage and much more. Thanks for stopping by!
