Today's NYT Strands Hints, Answer and Help for Dec. 15, #287

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Strands is a fun one today. I don’t know about you, but 2024 has been a great year for stargazing for me. We flew to Cleveland to see the total solar eclipse from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where they played Black Hole Sun, Ain’t No Sunshine and Here Comes the Sun as the sun slipped away and then came back. And the Northern Lights has showed up — faintly — where I live in Seattle. If stargazing is a favorite activity of yours, you might just ace today’s Strands puzzle, but read on for hints and answers.

Also, I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Moonlighting

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Made of green cheese.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

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

GLUE, GLUER, BEST, BESTS, BETS, WANE, PULL, REST, TEAR, RESTS, PANE, BLUE, CREST, PATE, PATES

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: