WSJ (Contest) Grid: 15 minutes; Meta: 5 more 
[3.57 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Keeping Time” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re looking for how 34-Across is observed. That entry was BOXINGDAY, clued as December 26 observance in Britain (but probably not in France, Germany, Spain or the Czech Republic). There were four long horizontal entries. Next step: find a French, German, Spanish, and Czech connection. It didn’t take me long:
WSJ Contest – 12.28.2025
- ON[A](JOUR)[N]EY: Seeing the world, perhaps
- MO[N](TAG)[U]ES: Feuding family of Verona
- R[A](DIA)[L]SAW: Cutter with a blade suspended on an arm
- GO[L](DEN)[Y]EAR: Jubilee in the Catholic church
JOUR, TAG, DIA, and DEN are the French, German, Spanish, and Czech words for DAY, respectively. Each day is boxed by two letters that spell our contest solution ANNUALLY. Another great meta by Mike, with his trademark surgical precision. I loved it. Solvers: please share your thoughts.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4 stars
I would call that when not how.
Great meta, although it took me longer than it might have if I hadn’t “pursued” a rabbit hole of the game Tag and the German word for day. I thought Den might be another answer to the Dungeon clue etc. Finally after putting the puzzle aside, I thought to myself “How is the darn thing observed?” And I said “annually.” And I went back and looked at my notes and there it was. Happy ending.
It took me a while, because I chased the “tag” rabbit too. Then it hit me, “Boxing Day” (pretty literal), and I had it.
I quickly saw JOUR, TAG, etc., and figured the meta answer was somehow surrounding those words. But my “boxes” wanted to go all the way around the four days and I didn’t think to look at only the letters before and after the days.
I’d have done better with a prompt that told me I was looking for an eight-letter word. Some weeks, I need a little extra help with these metas.