NYT Connections December 25, 2025: Solving the Tricky Solfege Category

The New York Times Connections puzzle for December 25, 2025 (Puzzle #928) presented players with a particularly challenging category that stumped many solvers. The category, "Comprised of solfege (Do-re-mi)," contained the words LAREDO, MIRE, RETIRE, and SOLTI.

This category proved difficult for several reasons. Many players were unfamiliar with LAREDO (a Texas border city) and SOLTI (referring to Hungarian conductor Georg Solti). The connection between these seemingly unrelated words is that each contains the spelling of a solfege note:

LAREDO contains LA and RE and DO
MIRE contains MI and RE
RETIRE contains RE and TI and RE
SOLTI contains SOL and TI

The solfege system, which uses syllables to represent pitches in music education, proved to be an unexpected connection for Christmas Day. Players who recognized the musical notation were able to solve this category, while others found it particularly challenging, especially given the obscure nature of some of the words.

This puzzle demonstrates how Connections often tests not just vocabulary but also knowledge of specialized systems like solfege notation. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that two of the words (Laredo and Solti) are proper nouns that don't immediately suggest a musical connection.