Fashion designer Lange / THU 12-25-25 / Transcript ruiners / Old dagger carried by Scottish Highlanders / Right-eous path? / Footwear for a bride, perhaps / Vodka-and-pineapple juice cocktail popularized on "Sex and the City" / Letter after three consecutive rhyming letters / Ballon ___ (soccer star's award) / "___ the Limit" (posthumous hit for the Notorious B.I.G.)

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "... LAUGHING all the way!" (51A: What's seen "all the way" through this puzzle?) — the puzzle depicts the first verse of "Jingle Bells," with lyrics appearing in a series of fill-in-the-blank clues; the final part of the verse, "... LAUGHING all the way!" is depicted visually in the grid by a series of laugh sounds found in circled squares embedded inside longer Across answers—the "laughs" stretch "all the way" from the NW to the SE corner of the grid:

The lyrics!:

• Dashing through the SNOW ... (4A)
• In a ONE-HORSE open sleigh ... (21A)
• O'er the fields WE GO ... (7D)
• LAUGHING all the way (51A)

The laughs!:

• LOLLYGAG (16A: Dawdle)
• BY THE HORNS (26A: One way to take a bull)
• RICHARD HARRIS (35A: First portrayer of Albus Dumbledore, the final live-action role in his long film career)
• WHITE HEELS (42A: Footwear for a bride, perhaps)
• BROUHAHA (57A: Ado)

Word of the Day: LIZ Lange (61A: Fashion designer Lange) — 

Liz Lange is an American fashion designer and businessperson. She is the creative director and CEO of Figue, and the founder of Liz Lange Maternity, which introduced form-fitting designer pregnancy wear in 1998. Lange has been called a pioneer in the apparel industry. // Lange has two children, Gus and Alice, and lives in Manhattan and in East Hampton, at the Grey Gardens estate. The setting of the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, it was purchased by Lange in 2017.

She is the niece of businessman Saul Steinberg. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is an A+ theme concept. The theme execution, as well as the fill, kept trying to dampen my good time, but it's Christmas, goddammit! I choose joy! I choose to focus on that one moment when the puzzle's predicted "AHA" response (1A: Response to discovering the theme of a crossword) actually came true! I had drifted across the top of the grid ... noticed the first laugh syllable ... noticed the second "Jingle Bells" lyric ... and then while filling out the NE corner, it suddenly hit me, and I said, out loud, to no one, "Oh! LAUGHING all the way!" It happened here, just as I filled in UTILE (thus distracting me from the ugliness that is UTILE):

I knew right then the puzzle was going to "laugh" all the way across the grid, and if I'd stopped right there, right at the moment of true theme revelation, I think I would've told you "this is the best puzzle I've solved in many months." To have the puzzle literally sing the song, and then to drop little laughs in there like breadcrumbs ... all the way across the grid ... it's ingenious. It's also dense as hell—between the lyric answers and the laugh answers, there are nine themers, with density reaching really intense levels in the upper part of the grid (where SNOW crosses WE GO crosses LOLLYGAG abuts ONE-HORSE. Almost every Down up there has to cross two themers. SUPERSTATE has to cross three (3). HEADWRITER has to cross four (4!). That is nuts. Themers are fixed answers. Once you set them, they don't move, and the denser they are, the harder it is to build a clean grid around them, which may be why it feels kinda janky here and there. 

First of all, some of the theme answers are not, let's say, the strongest as stand-alone answers go. BY THE HORNS is slightly awkward, as are most prepositional phrases. WHITE HEELS are, I'm sure, a thing, but ... I dunno, felt pretty improvised, as puzzle answers go (WHITE HEELS, unshockingly, is a debut). But my biggest problem with the theme execution was the placement of "WE GO"—it's both misoriented and out of order. The first part of the lyric is up top, then the next part. is a few lines down ... so the next part should keep this pattern going—"WE GO" should appear as an Across answer (like the other lyric answers) somewhere between ONE-HORSE and LAUGHING. You have laughs drifting down the grid, you should have the song drifting down the grid—and you mostly do! It's just this one silly Down answer that's gotten things all loused up. Make "WE GO" Across and put it between ONE-HORSE and LAUGHING and you're perfect. Hell, if it's too hard to make "WE GO" fit in any of those 4-letter Across spaces, then just use "O'ER" as your fill-in-the-blank word. Doesn't get much more crosswordy than "O'ER!" This is the part "O'ER" was born to play, put him in! Anything but yanking "WE GO" out of sequence and wrenching it into Down position. This is the problem with having such a great idea—botch the execution even a little, and it's jarring. 

The fill in general was on the weak side. Not a Deadhead so LESH looked like a typo, honestly (this is LESH's fifth NYTXW appearance, first in eight years). UTAHN will always be my demonym nemesis (demonymesis!). Ugly as sin. SIREE should never be out without his YES companion. Window brands (PELLA) do not make for happy holiday grids. THEEU will never look good in the grid. Nor will CIT (ouch). LOL at G'BYE (another debut). That's ... inventive. Desperately inventive. See also "LET HIM." Just making up new answers out here today, Merry Christmas! As for EFFS (63A: Transcript ruiners) ... why isn't that just ELMS or something simple and nice like that? The worst answer of the day for me, though, was SLEAZO. What is with the "O," who says that? You'd call someone a SLEAZE (47D: Slimeball). A "slimeball" is a SLEAZE. SLEAZO sounds like a derelict clown. Or, like, Bingo's mortal enemy. "There was a clown who hunted dogs and SLEAZO was his name-o..." Nine times out of ten, you ask someone to fill in the missing letter and make a noun out of SLEAZ-, they're putting in an "E." 'Cause that's the term. SLEAZO, yeesh. Yeesho. This is a long and bitter way of saying I had to track down a mistake today, and SLEAZE was its name (-o). 

Bullets:

• 31A: Old dagger carried by Scottish Highlanders (DIRK) — crosswordese of yore! Also the name of an actor I love, DIRK Bogarde. He hasn't been a clue since 1998. Probably the right call, but I'd love to see him come striding into the grid on a Friday or Saturday. He's fabulous.

• 40A: Letter after three consecutive rhyming letters (IOTA) — those three letters ... I dunno, Dancer Prancer Shmancer? Surely it's three of the -ETAs. Which ones? I don't care.
• 22D: Someone who might ask "Mother, may I?" (NUN) — so the "Mother" is the Mother Superior in a convent.
• 11D: Vodka-and-pineapple juice cocktail popularized on "Sex and the City" (FLIRTINI) — I'd sooner die than waste my one cocktail a day on this abomination, buuuuuut I'm always going to cheer for cocktails in the grid, even in their more repugnant incarnations. 
• 41A: Right-eous path? (EAST) — ending on a high note. This clue is insane. It's doing a funny little dance just for your amusement. Just trying to liven up an otherwise forgettable answer. And, you know what, little clue? Good job. ("Right" is EAST ... on a map)

A few 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲 now before I go sit in the dark with my coffee and watch the sun rise (my favorite time of day). Note: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANY MORE PET PICS, I'M ALL FULL UP FOR THIS YEAR, thank you.

Bella is hard to see in this picture but she needs you to know that she is there, being good (on the pillow, bottom left)

[Thanks, Martha!]

Bowie is here to make sure none of the kids f*** with Santa anymore. "Just sit down, state your toy wish, and then move along. Hands to yourself. Santa's beard is not a toy for your grubby hands, Timmy. Beat it!"

[Thanks, Barbara!]

Another in the "hostage photo" genre. Poor Finnegan. Finnegan wants to begin again, preferably without the costume. Less costume, more treats!

[Thanks, Lana!]

Billy Eckstine here has quite the life. Used to be a wild cat, now he's got fancy Italian digs (seriously, he lives in Italy, this is Italy) and lounges on the couch and enjoys the Christmas lights while his human caretakers bring him bonbons, I assume.

[Thanks, Tara!]

Rikki failed out of Stealthy Commando Snow Dog school because he kept smiling and his pink tongue would give his position away.  So now he just chases balls and enjoys the snow like a good dog.

[Thanks, Beverly!]

Finally, there's Belle, who may or may not have committed a Christmas murder. Did Santa really need Comet? Guess we'll find out!

[Thanks, Lori!]

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration opens January 8!)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)