Looking for today's Connections answer for Puzzle #564 Connections for December 26, the same difficulty level as yesterday's puzzle?

We update our Connections hints and tips every day. And if the hints are not enough for you, see the four answers below, along with the category name and related words.

In addition, for those of you reading this in another time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #563.

There are spoilers for Connection 564. Only those who want to know the answer to today's Connections should read on.

Or see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

Today's connecting words are: Tidy, Ala, Handsome, Elder, Spruce, Like, Pine, Miss, Healthy, Roughly, Ark, Palm, About, Respectable, Ore, Around

If you need a hint to help you solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least be able to find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further.

There are larger clues. But make sure they are the right size for your state.

Now, what is the answer to today's game #564, Connections?

Drum roll please.

Today's puzzle was fun. Actually, I started with Blue, tying things up with Handsome, Healthy, Respect for things being big, and Tidy got a bit lucky, because I had to make a connection between the two, and I was able to make a connection between the two, and I was able to make a connection between the two.

I got yellow second, but it was so straightforward that I felt like this could have been green. From there I went into the green section and immediately noticed that there were three different types of trees. I guessed the elder as the type of tree, and I was correct.

For purple, I was correct because they were the last four, and even an AP trainer writer would not have been able to figure out the U.S. state abbreviations no matter how much I thought about it, so I was glad it was the last four.

Reading this in a slow time zone? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 3.3 out of 5.

Yesterday's clue was a fun decoy that made me think it was Santa's reindeer. I soon realized it was actually a celestial object for the first category and was on my way.

I soon realized the connection to the character with the bow and arrow and locked it into the green category.

Then it got a little harder, but luckily I was able to combine the female ones, and after some trial and error I had one mistake left and a female animal. From there I had four left, but to be honest I would not have gotten the last one had I not gotten all the others first.