Find the links between the words to win today's game of Connections.gettyLooking for Tuesdays Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:Hey, everyone! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy holidays! If I knew how (and was also allowed to edit stock images that I can use here), I would have photoshopped little Santa hats onto the pins on the top image.Im raising a glass to you, your family and friends today. Heres to good health and great times with the people who mean the most to us.Before we get started, Ive started a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other folks. Im always interested to find out how other people approach the game, so join us! Its fun.Its also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up.Todays NYT Connections hints and answers for Wednesday, December 25, are coming right up.How To Play ConnectionsConnections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.MORE FOR YOUYoure presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.Theres only one solution for each puzzle, and youll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and youre incorrect, youll lose a life. If youre close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that youre one word away from getting it right, but youll still need to figure out which one to swap.If you make four mistakes, its game over. Lets make sure that doesnt happen with the help of some hints, and, if youre really struggling, todays Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, its easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publications Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.What Are Todays Connections Hints?Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of todays Connections groups, Ill reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.Todays 16 words are...QUEENSTARCUPIDSTRONGRUDOLPHSAGITTARIUSNANNYCOMETVIXENMOONROBIN HOODSHANNONHAWKEYEFEYJENNYPLANETAnd the hints for todays Connections groups are:Yellow group theyre mostly out of this worldGreen group Katniss, Merida and Rambo would fit in hereBlue group Purple group familiar faces for late-night NBC viewersWhat Are Todays Connections Groups?Need some extra help?Be warned: were starting to get into spoiler territory.Todays Connections groups are...Yellow group celestial objectsGreen group archersBlue group female animalsPurple group S.N.L. cast membersWhat Are Todays Connections Answers?Spoiler alert! Dont scroll any further down the page until youre ready to find out todays Connections answers.This is your final warning!Todays Connections answers are...Yellow group celestial objects (COMET, MOON, PLANET, STAR)Green group archers (CUPID, HAWKEYE, ROBIN HOOD, SAGITTARIUS)Blue group female animals (JENNY, NANNY, QUEEN, VIXEN)Purple group S.N.L. cast members (FEY, RUDOLPH, SHANNON, STRONG)Neato, I got a perfect game. That brings me up to three straight wins. Here's how I fared:There was a timely red herring here of the names of Santas reindeer: CUPID, RUDOLPH, COMET and VIXEN. But as soon as I saw ROBIN HOOD and HAWKEYE, it was clear that there would be a group of archers.(Tina) FEY and (Maya) RUDOLPH suggested to me that there would be a group of Saturday Night Live alumni, but other than (Molly) SHANNON, I wasnt quite sure what else would fit. It took me a moment to realize that the missing piece of the puzzle was Cecily STRONG.I could make out the celestial bodies clearly enough and I assumed those were the yellows, so I submitted the blues first. I didnt make that connection, however.A JENNY is a female donkey, a NANNY is a female goat, a QUEEN is a female cat (or a QUEEN bee) and a VIXEN is a female fox.Thats all there is to it for todays Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Thursdays game if you need them.P.S. Since its Christmas Day, lets go with the very best Christmas movie: Die Hard. Its very much not one for kids, but its a fantastic thriller that has plenty of holiday spirit. Yippee ki-yay, indeed:Have a great day! Make sure to drink enough water! Call someone you love!If youre so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! 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