Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #554 from December 16, a little easier than yesterday's puzzle, this puzzle from Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 3.3 out of 5.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. 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, #553.

There are spoilers for connection 554. Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's connection.

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: light bulb, snowball, ham, chicken, pillow, yodel, bar, food, knock-knock, walkie-talkie, ding-dong, water balloon, satellite, devildog, amhoho

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, each themes in order of difficulty:

These hints should give you at least some idea of how to find the answers to today's connections. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you just want the answer, scroll down further.

For a bigger clue, think of childhood fights, cafeteria staples, and joke books during the broadcast.

Now, what's the answer to today's game #554 Connection?

Drum roll, please.

Even though it was ranked a little lower than Sunday's puzzle, today's puzzle was a doozy for me. I must have been hungry, because the names of the snacks caught my attention first: Devil Dog, Ding Dong, Ho-Ho, and Yodel. I tried to put Snowballs (turns out Hostess snacks don't have a “w” in their name), but I struck out first.

I then wandered around a bit trying to find another use for snowballs, but hoods, pillows, and water balloons finally caught my eye as other forms of pint-sized war games.

Next came the purple category. I thought “knock-knock” and “chicken” must have something to do with it, but it wasn't until I started thinking about setting up other dad jokes that “bar” and “light bulb” came up.

As a result, unsurprisingly, the easiest categories-Am, Ham, Satellite, and Walkie-Talkie-remained today's memorables.

Are you reading this in a slow time zone? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 3.4 out of 5.

The first words I noticed in yesterday's puzzle were the most violent: mace, flail, spear. But when I couldn't find the fourth word to complete the arsenal, I suspected I was caught in a red herring. And I was right! When I saw nutmeg, cloves, and pepper, it occurred to me that the connection crew was referring to the spice mace.

Riffle was next on my radar (at first I mistook it for rifle), and since I had only heard it to mean looking for books, Flip, Leaf, and Thumb were easy pickings.

Next, Flail, Flop, and Flounder were chosen because of their alliteration, and finally Tank was chosen because of its alliteration.

As a result, purple was filled with Key, Mar, Spear, and Style, all of which are memorized today.