Actress Strahovski of 2000s TV / SUN 12-21-14 / Computerdom informally / Roy Rogers's real last name / Risky chess move / Zion National park material / Tree whose pods have sweet pulp

Constructor: Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty: Medium


THEME:"Season's Greetings"— add "HO" sound for wackiness:

Theme answers:

• HO HUM DINGER (22A: Homer that leaves people yawning?)
• HOKEY WORD (24A: "Shucks!" or "Pshaw!"?)
• BLACK-EYED HOPIS (42A: Southwest tribe after a fistfight?)
• DESPICABLE HOMIE (67A: Backstabbing pal?)
• NO-MONEY HOEDOWN (91A: Barn dance that's free to attend?)
• CROSS HOBO (114A: Vagrant after getting kicked off a train, say?)
• HOKUM TO PAPA (117A: Stuff your dad finds ridiculous?)

Word of the Day: MARA Liasson (111D: ___ Liasson, NPR political correspondent) —

Mara Liasson (/ˈmɑrə ˈlaɪ.əsən/; born June 13, 1955) is an American journalist and political pundit. She is the national political correspondent for National Public Radio^[1] and also a contributor at Fox News Channel. (wikipedia) (I will never not make public radio correspondents my WOTD … I'm coming for you, Ira Flatow …)

If you never solved a Christmas-themed puzzle in your life before today, this one likely seemed cute to you. And it is, without a doubt, a well-made puzzle, with a consistent theme and very good, fresh fill. If Joel (who works for W.S.) is being groomed for Will's job, well, fine by me. He's super-talented and lives in the 21st century, so thumbs-up. But back to the theme—I knew what it was before I started. Or, rather, I said to myself, "It's not just adding 'hos' to things, is it?" And then that's exactly what it was. Very good HO-adding, for sure, but very predictable HO-adding nonetheless. Either I am some kind of psychic *or* I've seen this theme before at least once. I mean, seriously, it was the most obvious / cliché theme I could think of off the top of my head, so it must've been done more than once. Still, though, these answers are new to me, and pretty funny on the whole. And you'll struggle to find bad fill here. The future looks bright. Here's to more careful editing, better attention to detail, and cleaner fresher fill in 2015. Not sure why I'm making the New Year's speech now, but I am.


My coup of the day was remembering SLYE (14D: Roy Rogers's real last name). Took me just 25 short years to commit that old-school GEM to memory. Yay me. TIM COOK (5D: Steve Jobs's successor at Apple) and EBOLA VIRUS (16D: Cause for quarantine) give the puzzle a very up-to-the-minute feel, while YOGA POSE and SOY LATTE show that the NYT *knows* its demographics. KUDOS also to BAR SCENE and its clue (11A: Likely feature of a college town). Took me a lot of crosses too see it, but when I did: your prototypical "aha" moment.


PUZZLE NEWS: Matt Gaffney's (amazing) Weekly Crossword Contest is going to a subscription-only basis in 2015 (and good for him—good puzzles are worth paying for). 52 top-tier meta-puzzles for just $26. All the details here. For aficionados and aficionados-in-the-making. Get some.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. SOY LATTE anagrams to SLYE TO A T. Like, when you describe a young Roy Rogers perfectly. "That's SLYE TO A T!" she said, delightedly.