Monday, December 22, 2025

BEQ 11:23 (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 2:07 (Stella) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:54 (Sophia) [3.50 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 3:54 (Amy) [3.69 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (pannonica) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 4:10 (Jim Q) [3.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Suzanne Oliver’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s recap

Theme: SHORT CHANGE – each theme answer contains the name of a US coin with the last letter removed.

New York Times, 12 22 2025, By Suzanne Oliver

• 17a [Saxophone, trumpet, piano and bass, perhaps] – JAZZ QUARTET
• 25a [Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, for two] – JEDI MASTERS
• 35a [Some exams allow them] – OPEN NOTES
• 52a [Overly fussy] – PERSNICKETY
• 59a [Cheat … or a punny hint to the four sets of circled letters] – SHORT CHANGE

Fun theme! I had no idea what was going on for the majority of my solve – I actually got the answer JEDI MASTERS prior to JAZZ QUARTET, so when I saw the circled answers “dim”, I was thinking about lighting/colors, not about coins. I really like all the answers chosen for the theme – JEDI MASTERS and OPEN NOTES are fun since the circles span the two theme words. JAZZ QUARTET has great high-Scrabble-point letters and does as good of a job as possible hiding the hardest-to-hide coin. And PERSNICKETY is just a cool, specific word, although it was the hardest for me to get as I struggled with two crossing answers (KARAT as clued and TOOTSY).

Other notes on the puzzle:

• The grid shape lends itself to a ton of 7 letter entry stacks in the corners, which have some pretty standout fill! Some highlights: POP FOUL, AL DENTE, NONAGON, BIG LEAD, MOZILLA
• Only a bit of fill that is hard for a Monday – the suffix “ATIC”, the more-famous-in-crosswords-than-real-life ESAI Morales, and the weird spelling of TOOTSY (I would do “tootsie”, but that might be because of the same-named movie).
• [Typical “Survivor” locales] for ISLES – for the past 10+ years, all Survivor seasons (in the US, at least!) have been filmed in Fiji. As a big fan, I’m excited for the upcoming season 50, but already a little over all the CBS ads for it – the premiere isn’t until late February!
• Hardest part of the puzzle for me was, strangely, the clue [Bill] for BEAK. Blame the rest of the money-themed puzzle, but I kept looking for an answer with something to do with money or costs.

Happy Monday all! Congrats to Suzanne on a fabulous debut NYT puzzle.

Rena Cohen’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 12/22/25 by Rena Cohen

The revealer at 55A [Driving a car, or an apt description of the ends of 20-, 26-, and 46-Across] is BEHIND THE WHEEL, because each theme entry starts with (and thus, the rest of the entry is “behind”) a word that goes with WHEEL to make a new phrase:

• 20A [Basic lunch choice] is CHEESE SANDWICH, leading to CHEESE WHEEL.
• 26A [Art activity that comes with a key] is COLOR BY NUMBER, leading to COLOR WHEEL.
• 46A [1986 film teen with a poor attendance record] is FERRIS BUELLER, leading to FERRIS WHEEL.

I could do with more change in meaning between the theme words in their theme-answer sense and their WHEEL phrase sense. On the other hand, the lower-than-usual word count (for Monday, anyway) leads to some interesting and/or evocative longer answers like SPEED CUBER, GAME MODE, BLEARY-EYED, SHE-SHEDS, and YELLED AT.

 Jeff Jerome & Andrea Carla Michaels’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Building Blocks” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: The word URBAN can be found spread throughout common phrases.

WSJ • 12/22/25 • Mon • Building Blocks • Jeff Jerome • Andrea Carla Michaels • solution • 20251222

THEME ANSWERS:

• TURKEY BACON
• KURT COBAIN
• SECURITY BLANKET
• OUTER BANKS
• (revealer) [Uncontrolled development around a city, and a hint to this puzzle’s circles] URBAN SPRAWL. 

Andrea Carla “Mondays” is on a tear lately! Seeing her name all over the place- and it’s a welcome name, especially on a Monday. You can be certain the grid will be as crud free as possible with accessible and unique clues. I’ve gotten a lot of teens interested in crosswords, and the most important thing to hook them is a clear theme and minimal crosswordese. This one totally fits the bill.

The themers themselves here are great. They have pizzazz and are interesting to uncover in and of themselves. Also, there are no extraneous U’s, R’s, B’s, A’s, or N’s in the themers, which is not necessarily the “rule” for a theme like this when circled letters are employed, but very elegant nonetheless.

ERRATA / NEW TO ME:

• Good ambiguous clue for OLDIE [Fondly remembered song], since no one seems to be able to put their finger on what an “OLDIE” actually is. Some think it has to be from the 50’s. Others think it just has to be whatever one might consider “old.” The last time I turned on an OLDIE station it was playing a KURT COBAIN song, and then I realized I was an OLDIE also. I turned the station off.
• Speaking of old, is anyone listening to books ON TAPE anymore?
• And while we’re on the old topic, MTV is soon to be a thing of the past as well! End of an era for sure. Online streaming killed the video star.
• I always forget if it’s APSO or APSA, just like I forget if it’s GTO or GTA. I guessed wrong today, but noted I needed to go back there if Mr. Happy Pencii stayed at bay.
• [Parks in front of a bus?] ROSA. Good clue.
• [Sound of yips, but not yaps?] SHORT i – as in the vowel sounds featured in the word “yips” but not “yaps.” Once in a while these clues get me. Not today!
• [General activity?] WAR. Seems kinda dark. Weird to call WAR an “activity” imo. So that’s the one I give playful side-eye to today.

Thanks Jeff and Andrea! Fun one today!

4 stars.

Patrick Berry’s New Yorker crossword, “The Holiday Crossword: 2025 in language”—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 12/22/25 – Berry – “2025 in language”

It’s the end of the year and the New Yorker crosswords turn to wrapping up the year in music, literature, news, etc. Today’s spotlight is the year in language, in a nice and breezy puzzle from Patrick Berry.

Here are the neologism-oriented clues:

• 17a. [Having a meltdown], CRASHING OUT.
• 22a. [Low-quality digitally generated text, images, or videos], AI SLOP. The worst!
• 35a. [Diet Coke, in a modern analogy to a smoke break], FRIDGE CIGARETTE. Haven’t seen this one before since I don’t work in an office and no longer drink Diet Coke.
• 50a. [Pointy-toothed plush monster that became a global fad in 2025], LABUBU. Once again, as with “6-7,” I am indebted to South Park for understanding this one. You typically buy a package without knowing which Labubu will be inside, and people spend a bunch buying a lot of Labubus in the hopes of getting an artificially “rare” one. And the toys aren’t even cute!
• 55a. [Doing something with the express purpose of seeming cool], AURA FARMING. Ah, this one! I hope it really catches on through the broad population, for no other reason than I’m a crossword editor and we could really use a fresh angle for AURA clues.

Solid fill throughout, clues not too hard. Helpful for solvers who need to work the crossings for some (or all) of the new vocab. Four stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1846 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1846 — 12/22/25 (Click to Embiggen)

The top half of this one went pretty quickly, as did the bottom third. I got a little bogged down around 39A and learned I need to refresh my knowledge of European mountain ranges.

Stuff that caught my jaundiced* eye:

• 1A [Dotcom that created HTTP cookies] NETSCAPE Ha! “Mozilla” was an answer in today’s New York Times crossword, which prompted several comments in Wordplay about once popular browsers. I vaguely remember using Netscape until my employer decided we should all use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. I didn’t know that Netscape invented the ubiquitous cookies.
• 13A [One of Eleven’s superpowers] TELEPATHY I tried TELEKINESIS first, but of course that’s too long. I haven’t watched any of the new season of Stranger Things. Is it any good?
• 14A [___ Thom (mathematician who founded the catastrophe theory)] RENÉ I’d never heard of this guy nor his catastrophe theory, which Wikipedia describes as “a branch of bifurcation theory in the study of dynamical systems.” Yeah, right.
• 

  L’Impasse Cottin (1911–1912) (Click to Embiggen)

  15A [Strategy for stopping a team in the red zone from scoring] GOAL-LINE DEFENSE I’m not a gridiron football fan and needed a lot of crosses here. Today I Learned that the “red zone” is inside the 20-yard line.

• 17A [“Impasse Cottin” painter Maurice] UTRILLO I almost put that in without any crosses, even though I didn’t recognize the title of the painting.
• 29A [Actress Zegler] RACHEL A name I didn’t recognize; she played Maria in Spielberg’s West Side Story (which we still haven’t seen). Not to be confused with Renée Zellweger.
• 30A [“Room” author Donoghue] EMMA No idea here, either. I thought we’d seen the film adaptation, but my husband says we haven’t.
• 32A [Etailer with the slogan “Shop like a billionaire”] TEMU Do I care what they sell? Not really. We got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved last year and I’m reluctant to acquire more stuff now that we’re settled in here.
• 39A [Extinguish] CONSUME Help me out here. I don’t see the equivalence between clue and answer. Yes, fire can consume something — but if you extinguish the fire, it’s out.
• 46A [Rifugio Sapienza mountain] ETNA Interesting clue for a crossword staple. As near as I can tell, the Rifugio Sapienza is a hotel near the base of the cable car that goes to the top of Mt. Etna.
• 47A [They’re game] ANIMALS Cute clue.
• 51A [Reason you might not get the picture?] DEVELOPMENT HELL My favorite novel of the last 25 years is Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The film rights were sold before the novel was even published. Some of the names attached to the proposed adaptation over the years include Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Jude Law, Benedict Cumberbatch . . . Maybe the recent opera version will reignite Hollywood’s interest.
• 56A [Heavy hitters in the music business?] DRUMMERS Cute.
• 2D [Jazz pianist ___ Marsalis Jr.] ELLIS A gimme. If you want evidence that genes matter, look no further than the Marsalis family.
• 4D [Environmental disaster] SPILL There’s a street here named Larry Valdez Way. We drive on it every few weeks, but I still don’t know whether it’s pronounced with a short E (the way “Valdez” is usually pronounced) or a long E (like the port in Alaska).
• 8D [It’s just above a waterline] EYELASH Does that clue go too far?
• 9D [Rockabilly singer nicknamed “Little Miss Dynamite”] BRENDA LEE Not exactly a gimme, but not unknown, either. Apple Music just sold another “copy” of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
• 10D [Dal pulse] LENTIL I can usually count on Brendan to strengthen my vocabulary. “Pulse” can mean “the edible seeds of various leguminous plants, for example chickpeas, lentils, and beans.” It’s usually plural in that context, though.
• 12D [Problems in a bed] WEED Yeah, I thought about sex, too.
• 13D [Noncommittal amount in recipes] TO TASTE One of my jobs around here is to salt the guacamole. It always needs “a wee bit” more.
• 21D [Mont ___ (peak in the Chartreuse Mountains)] GRANIER Another new name. Those mountains are southeastern France, near Grenoble. That’s a name I recognize from the 1968 Winter Olympics (which I’m sure I saw some of).
• 25D [Band that took its name from a symbol on a sewing machine] AC/DC I didn’t know that bit of trivia.
• 29D [“Bulls on Parade” band, initially] RATM a/k/a Rage Against the Machine.
• 46D [“There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ___ binge” (Hunter S. Thompson)] ETHER I like Fill in the Blank quote clues because they’re usually pretty easy. But with Thompson, it could have been any bingeable substance of five letters.

*Figuratively speaking, but thanks for wondering.