Friday, December 26, 2025

LAT untimed(pannonica) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:52 (Amy) [3.60 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
Universal 3:29 (Jim P) [3.30 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Andrew Spooner’s New York Times crossword — Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 12/26/25 – no. 1226

Solid themeless to close out the holiday today and get back to the regular schedule of, well, doing crosswords and blogging them. Hope you all had a good Thursday, be it your holiday or just an enforced day off, or a day you had to work.

Fave fill: SLOWPOKE, TIGHTROPE WALKER, MOIST [Like a good sponge cake] (only because the word irks my husband), “I PROMISE,” KANGAROO, RAGNAROK, TRUE LOVE.

Current events crosswordese: 39A. [Down Under bird that scientists are working to “de-extinct”], MOA. Beg pardon, but can a New Zealand bird be called “Down Under,” or is that specifically Australian? Wikipedia tells me the moa ranged from the size of a turkey to 12 feet (!) tall. If you aren’t afraid of birds now, you would be if they were twice your height.

The middle of this puzzle is crazy for Tuesday. There’s MARDI, French for Tuesday. There’s SHROVE Tuesday. And then there are TACOS! They have a hard clue, [Food that can be prepared de canasta], rather than [Mexican food that might be featured on Tuesdays]. I’d never heard of tacos de canasta, but you can read up on them here. Anyone know of a tacos de canasta source in the US?

46A. [Re-fresh?], RETRO. Old style that is fresh again, or “re-fresh.”

14D. [Baby sitter?], STROLLER. A thing in which you can have a baby sitting up.

3.75 stars from me.

CJ Tan’s Universal crossword, “Uplifting Words”—Jim P’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases with hidden (circled) synonyms of “Sweet!” in the upward direction.

Universal crossword solution · “Uplifting Words” · CJ Tan · Fri., 12.26.25

• 4d. [“OK, that’s over the line!”] “YOU’RE PUSHING IT!” Super.
• 8d. [Sci-fi evacuation vessel] ESCAPE POD. Dope.
• 13d. [Certain tech professionals] DATA ENGINEERS. Neat.
• 14d. [“Best movie ever!”] “ABSOLUTE CINEMA!” Nice.
• 31d. [Annual championship series held in May-June] NBA FINALS. Fab.

Good consistency, an accessible theme, and a fun theme set. Overall, a very good example of this type of hidden word theme. My only nit is that I’ve never heard the phrase ABSOLUTE CINEMA, but that could easily just be me. (And of course, the parenthetical letter-counting hints—which I’ve excised from the clues—are still obnoxious.)

I very much appreciate the grid symmetry especially while still providing for long fill like AIR GUITAR, ART LESSON, LONG-GONE, poet Sara TEASDALE, and SKI TRIP. Some crosswordese is present (OKED, ESO, NOT I) but it’s nothing beyond the pale.

Clues of note:

• 61a. [One might include some color commentary!]. ART LESSON. Odd that this has an exclamation point instead of the usual question mark.
• 50d. [One of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers]. ROMEO. I encountered a boy with this name recently (name called out at the pediatrician’s waiting room). That’s quite a weight to place on your child’s shoulders. No pressure, kid.
• 67a. [Toothbrush approval org.]. ADA. If you’re not sure if the toothbrush you’re about to purchase is approved, just ask the store worker.

3.5 stars.

Joe Rodini’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up

LAT • 12/26/25 • Rodini • solution • 20251226

Left-right mirror symmetry for this one.

• 38a^R [Revealing garment, or how to make 17-, 23-, 49-, and 53-Across match their clues] CROP TOP. That is, we are to excise the consecutive letters T-O-P from the entries, which by the way are sensible words and phrases per se.
• 17a. [Can’t and won’t] CONTRACT OPTIONS (contractions). The clue is a bit trickier for having elided a ‘say’ or ‘for two’ qualifier.
• 23a. [Respectful title in “Bridgerton”] TOPHER GRACE (Her Grace).
• 49a. [Tribute band’s set list] COVERT OPS (covers). This one seems problematic because in the grid it’s very easy—almost natural—to parse the answer as COVER TOPS, which seems too similar to the revealer.
• 53a. [Decorator’s samples] STOPWATCHES (swatches).

Not a super-exciting theme, but maybe that’s appropriate for the day after the christmas hullabaloo.

• 3d [“Welp, never mind”] OR NOT. 4d [“Amscray!”] GET LOST. Whoa, harsh.
• 7d [“Peace”] LATER. Both are informal parting words.
• 25d [Mulligan] REDO. For some reason I always confuse Mulligan and MacGuffin and have trouble holding both terms in my head at the same time.
• 38d [Partnership, informally] CAHOOTS. Very informally, I think.
• 39d [Oracle] PROPHET. 26a [Oracle] SEER.
  
• 45d [Tottenham’s opponent in the North London derby] ARSENAL, which happens to be one of the few Premier Football League teams I can name.
• 48d [Abbreviation that refers to many racial identities] POC, which stands for ‘people of color’. Basically, non-white. It’s a de facto demonstration how societal hegemony considers ‘white’ to be default and somehow better/neutral/unbiased.
• 52d [Statistical tool for comparing means] T-TEST. Student‘s t-test! 13d [Guinness superlative] MOST.
• 53d [Water down, say] SOAK. Really thought this might be RAIN.
• 28a [Jelly bean dispenser opening] SLOT. Not anywhere near the top of my images or thoughts for SLOT. But it’s that kind of varied experience that characterizes the human condition.
• 41a [Eco-friendly beauty brand] AVEDA. I wonder just how many ‘eco-friendly’ companies engage in greenwashing.
• 46a [Insulation resistance tester’s unit] MEGOHM. Seems like an vocabular outlier in this crossword. Also, the clue dupes 52a’s answer.
• 62a [Metric weights, casually] KGS. Interestingly, if we’re abbreviating, then the shorter KG would also be the ‘formal’ plural. Generally it’s kilogram/kilograms. But I’m probably overthinking this, as KGS is just a shorter way of communicating the spelled-out ‘kilograms’.
• 66a [Sudden and jarring transition] LEAP.