Today’s NIT Strands Tips, Answers & Help for December 12, #284

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Every year I host a cookie exchange, where friends of all kinds come from near and far, bearing cookies, and everyone goes home with a box full of new types of cookies to try. That’s your first clue for today Strands puzzle. Think cookies, especially sugar cookies that you roll and cut and shape accordingly. I didn’t make that kind this year – I made Nut Print Cookies and Sugar Plum Cranberry Sparkling Cookies. Both must have been guards. If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need to know how to play Strands, but just in case, I’m going in-depth about rules for Strands in this story. And now, more hints and today’s Strands answers.

If you are looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NIT puzzle tips page.

Read more: NIT Connections turns 1: These are the 5 hardest puzzles so far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands topic is: Shape and bake.

If that doesn’t help, here’s a clue: If you give a mouse a cookie.

Words to unlock hints in the game

Your goal is to find the hidden words that match the theme of the puzzle. If you’re stuck, find all the words you can. Each time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any four or more letter words you find will work:

• ROOK, BEAR, DUNE, DIET, ROOT, FACE, RATS, LATCH, BELT, LEET, ANGLE, HEAR, CREEL, MANE, SNOW.

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers related to the topic. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that runs from one side of the puzzle to the other. Once you have them all (originally I thought there were always eight, but I learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the non-spangram responses:

• BELL, STAR, ANGEL, BUNNY, HEART, FLOWER, DIAMOND

Today’s strand spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is COOKIECUTTER. To find it, start with C which is two columns to the left and three letters up from the bottom, and travel clockwise in a sort of circle.