Looking for a clue to today's Connections answer for puzzle #562 on December 24, a little easier than yesterday's puzzle, the Connections Companion gave this puzzle a difficulty score of 2.6 out of 5.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. And if the hints are not enough, see the four answers below, along with the category name and related words.

In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #561.

There are spoilers for Connection 562. Only those who want to know the answer to today's Connections should read on.

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 connection words are: Gimme, Bears, Lions, Oh My, Close, Dear, Ease, Bets, Jays, Bills, Please, Tigers, Tight, Bye, Intimate, Bees.

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

These hints should at least help you find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further.

Here's a bigger clue: Think of “The Wizard of Oz” and the friendly bond the characters experienced. Then imagine multiple characters and do some musical calculations.

Now, what is the answer to the connection in today's game #562?

Drumroll, please.

Today's clue began with an absurdly simple reference to The Wizard of Oz. Most people will catch on to this quickly before moving on to other categories.

After shuffling around a few times, I realized that close, tight, and intimate are all about being intimate with others. Deer was the only one that had to do with physical intimacy.

I then failed several times to connect, well, anything together, and finally ended our winning streak by failing the puzzle.

Are you reading this late in the day? According to the Connections Companion, this is the Connections answer to game #561, which had a difficulty level of 3 out of 5.

Yesterday's clue was a mishmash of numbers and letters, but finding the homophones Ewe, U, Yew, and You was easy. However, that meant that the pressure was on to find the more difficult categories.

Fortunately, after some shuffling, Glue and Bowl were close together.

I then shuffled several times trying to connect all the single letters, but got stuck; after brainstorming other uses for V, Boat, Crew, and Scoop stood out.

That left Blue as today's memorization fill with Grand, K, M, and Thou.