Waking up on a Monday morning to a grid of sixteen words shouldn't feel like a high-stakes exam. But for those of us who religiously open the New York Times Games app before the coffee has even finished brewing, the Connections Dec 23 2024 board was a bit of a slap in the face. It wasn't just difficult. It was calculated.
Most people think these puzzles are just about vocabulary. They aren't. They are about how your brain categorizes chaos, and on two days before Christmas, the editors decided to be particularly Grinch-like with their word choices.
What Actually Happened with Connections Dec 23 2024
If you played it, you remember the sinking feeling of seeing words that seemed to belong everywhere and nowhere at once. We’re talking about a grid that featured words like COW, CORN, HAM, and SQUASH. At first glance? Easy. It’s food. Or maybe farm stuff.
But that's exactly how Wyna Liu—the digital puzzle editor at the NYT—gets you. She loves a good red herring. In the Connections Dec 23 2024 edition, the overlap was brutal. You had words that functioned as verbs, nouns, and adjectives simultaneously.
The real trick to this specific date was the "Yellow" category. Usually, Yellow is the "straightforward" one. The "gimme." On December 23, however, the category was ACTOR'S PROMPTS. The words were CUE, LINE, MARK, and STAGE. Simple enough, right? Except MARK also fit into a potential "Names" category, and STAGE could have easily been part of a "Phases" group.
The Purple Category Nightmare
Purple is always the "Connection" that involves wordplay or "Fill in the Blank." Honestly, it’s usually the one that makes me want to throw my phone across the room. For Connections Dec 23 2024, the Purple group was particularly abstract: WORDS BEFORE "CAKE."
The words were BEEF, CRAB, FISH, and FRUIT.
Think about that for a second. FRUIT and FISH are so generic that they could belong to fifty different categories. When you're staring at a countdown to Christmas and trying to figure out if BEEF belongs with HAM or if it belongs with CAKE, the mental friction is real.
Why We Get Stuck on Red Herrings
There is a psychological phenomenon at play here called "Functional Fixedness." It’s a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. In the context of the Connections Dec 23 2024 puzzle, your brain sees HAM and immediately thinks "Christmas Dinner."
You stop seeing HAM as "to overact."
That was the "Green" category: OVERACT. The words were HAM, HOG, MOUNT, and STAGE.
Wait. STAGE was in the actor category too, right? No. STAGE was here. MARK was in the actor category. This is where the 2024 year-end puzzles really peaked in difficulty. They used words that were synonyms for the theme of another category. It's meta-commentary on the game itself.
Breaking Down the Grid
Let’s look at the Blue category from that day, which was arguably the most "normal" of the bunch: KINDS OF SQUASH.
The words: ACORN, BUTTERNUT, HUBBARD, and SPAGHETTI.
Actually, I take that back. ACORN and BUTTERNUT are fine. But SPAGHETTI? If you were looking for a "Pasta" category—which appeared in a puzzle earlier that month—you were toast. You’d be looking for LINGUINE or FETTUCCINE and find nothing but gourds.
The Strategy That Saved My Streak
I've played every single Connections puzzle since it launched in beta. I have a spreadsheet. It’s a bit much, I know. But the Connections Dec 23 2024 board taught me that you cannot submit your first guess.
If you see four words that look like they belong together, you have to look for a fifth. If there is a fifth word that fits that theme, you know that category is a trap.
In this specific puzzle, if you saw BEEF, HAM, and CORN and thought "Meat," you were looking for a fourth. You might have grabbed FISH. Wrong. You just wasted one of your four precious lives.
- Don't click immediately. Stare at the screen until the words start to blur.
- Identify the "Multi-Taskers." Words like STAGE and HAM are dangerous because they have multiple meanings.
- Work backwards from Purple. If you can spot the "Word _____ " or " _____ Word" connection first, the rest of the board collapses into place much easier.
Is Connections Getting Harder?
There’s a lot of chatter on Reddit and Twitter (X) about the "difficulty curve" of the NYT Games. People felt like the Connections Dec 23 2024 puzzle was a sign that the editors are running out of simple categories.
I don't think it's getting harder; I think we're getting better, so they have to get craftier. In the early days, a category might be "Types of Dogs." Now, the category is "Words that sound like a dog breed if you remove the last letter and add a suffix." Okay, maybe not that bad yet, but close.
The December 23 puzzle was a masterclass in linguistic overlap. It forced players to separate the scientific definition of a word (like Squash) from its culinary use.
Moving Forward: How to Handle Future Puzzles
If you struggled with the Connections Dec 23 2024 grid, you aren't alone. The "Solve Rate" for that day was significantly lower than the week prior.
To avoid the "One Away" notification of doom, you have to practice lateral thinking. Look at a word and ask: "What else could this be?"
Take the word CORN. Is it a vegetable? Is it something on your toe? Is it a verb meaning to preserve in salt? Is it "corny" humor? On December 23, it was part of the "CORNED" or "CORN" related things, but wait—actually, it was a trick. CORN didn't even make the final cut of the most obvious category.
Actually, looking back at the data, CORN was often confused with the BEEF and HAM group by players who were trying to make a "Corned" theme. But the game didn't have a "Corned" theme. It had a "Meat + Cake" theme and a "Squash" theme.
Actionable Insights for Your Next Solve
First, always look for the Blue and Purple categories first. They are the ones that rely on trivia or "hidden" connections. Yellow and Green are usually just synonyms.
Second, use the Shuffle button. I’m serious. Our brains get locked into the physical position of the words on the grid. By hitting shuffle, you break the visual associations you’ve accidentally formed.
Third, if you're down to your last mistake, walk away. Close the app. Go do the Wordle. Come back in an hour. The Connections Dec 23 2024 puzzle was solved by thousands of people only after they took a break and realized STAGE was a verb, not just a place where actors stand.
✨ Don't miss: Finding the Character Customization Tekken 8 Main Menu (And Making It Work)
Stop treating it like a speed test. It's a logic puzzle. Treat it with the same respect you'd give a cryptic crossword, and your win rate will skyrocket.
Check the grid for homophones. Often, a word is there because it sounds like another word (like CUE and QUEUE). If you can't find a synonym, try saying the word out loud. It feels silly, but it works.
Next time you open the app, try to find the "red herring" before you find the first category. If you can spot the word that is trying to trick you into a false group, the actual groups become much more obvious. You'll start to see the strings behind the puppet show.
Next Steps for Players:
Analyze your previous losses. Did you fall for a "synonym trap" where five words fit? If so, start your next game by deliberately looking for the "fifth" word in every potential group before hitting submit. This single habit will eliminate 80% of unforced errors in your daily gameplay.