Working Towards Wellness: December 2025

[itsfi]

Happy holidays, BIC!!! The year has flown by and the days will only go by more quickly as we move closer and closer to the end of December. With all the events, festivities and holidays this month brings, the season can be a fun and joyous time, but it can also be a very busy, heavy and sometimes stressful one as well. It's important to prioritize self-care during the holiday season; consider this month's game of BWell bingo one of the tools  available to help you keep wellness top of mind. 

Wellness Bingo: December 2025

All are welcome and encouraged to take part in this wellness bingo challenge, wherever you are in your own self-care journey, and in whatever manner this challenge will serve you best. Wellness takes work; let's do the work together, BIC!

For more information on this month's wellness bingo activities, take a look at: <<links to be posted>>

• How To Play
• Rows 1 Thru 3 Activities
• Rows 4 & 5 Activities
• How To Post

[Samtian]

@CorgiMommy Thank you, it's fun!

[caitbird]

@Samtian  awesome job! Good for you for decluttering some of your lipsticks - I need to get back on track with decluttering my beauty stash too, haha. I hope you enjoyed the movie!

[Samtian]

@caitbird Thank you, for the most part I did!

[itsfi]

@Samtian, you're doing an amazing job with your wellness activities. I learned about Connections from a couple of BIC'ers - @CorgiMommy and @ather. You know, I find that it's one of those games where, at least for me, it depends on the day adn the mix of words. I do need to make sure I'm in a certain headspace to be able to think my way through it. Or, if I'm doing it on the weekends, I'll spend time with it over the course of a day and not necessarily one sitting. 

Kudos to you on whittling down some of your lipstick stash. It's not easy to declutter. Okay, somewhat random question, do you have favorite or go-to items you like to get from Panda Express?

[Samtian]

@itsfi Yeah Connections hurts my brain haha I haven't found a time of day I'm better at it.

As for Panda I HAVE to get a plate with the Honey Walnut Shrimp ( I have an oral allergy to tree nuts so those get shoved aside, but I'm obsessed with that Shrimp), Orange Chicken, and Chow Mein. 

[itsfi]

lolololol, I get that @Samtian. I tried the other day but just kept staring at the screen. I kept thinking "I see the words ... " but for the life of me, I couldn't even tell you how any of them could logically (or illogically) be connected. I decided my brain was not in the mood for being teased that day. 😂🤣😂  Those are some very popular, well loved items from Panda.

[CorgiMommy]

Almost completed the board which is my goal this month

 Green are the most recent ones on completed.

Music - dug up my old holiday CDs and listened to sone old favorite songs i.e.  Charlotte Church, John Denver and the Muppets,  Boney James to name a few. 

Digital detox - shut off my phone one night a week to keep me off social media 

Treat Myself - got a massage and facial, it felt si good

Pay it Forwatd - went to Costco and only purchased food for our local food bank

Declutter and rest - cleaned out my closet and took a crucial eye to everything.   

[caitbird]

@CorgiMommy  wow, awesome job, you are almost done with the whole board already! These are some great wellness activities!

[CorgiMommy]

Thank you @caitbird 

[itsfi]

@CorgiMommy, that's a great goal and you are well on your way!  I initially misread your declutter and reset and thought you decluttered and took a cruise. I thought, "well that's a marvelous way to reset!" 😅 Congrats on hitting some BINGO's. 

[CorgiMommy]

Thanks @itsfi 

[Samtian]

@CorgiMommy You are on a roll!

[CorgiMommy]

I am trying, thanks @Samtian 

[nuinui933]

I didn't get as much checked off as I wanted. It's been busy catching up with work since I've been back home.

Healthy meal - been trying to cook healthier and eat healthier when going out - doing mostly steamed veggies and baked chicken or fish at home.

Holiday fun - before we left for the airport, I went to lunch with my dad, one of my brothers and his fiancee and then we grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and a cranberry bliss bar. It was delicious. I grabbed on at the Starbucks at the airport to have during the flight #sorrynotsorry

[caitbird]

@nuinui933  great job! Even if you didn't get to check off as many things as you hoped, you still were able to get a fair amount done already!

[itsfi]

@nuinui933, I often feel like I need a vacation right after coming back from a vacation, if only just to get a little caught up on work, or my emails alone. 😆 You're doing great with your wellness bingo; we all have periods where we are on a roll with self-care and others where it's more about getting in what we can when we can. Just keep with it. Oh, a cranberry bliss bar, yum! I haven't had one of those in such a long time; I may need to grab one before they're gone!

[itsfi]

Wellness activities completed for Week 1 marked at the top of the circle with a red gift box with a white bow 

• Went shopping 🛒 to pick up canned goods 🥫to donate to the local food bank as well as toiletries and cold weather accessories (gloves, scarves, hats, etc.) for those who may be in need during this already much colder season we are experiencing. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the greater need, but  contributions of all sizes, scope and manner can create a ripple effect that can add up. Paying it forward is indeed its own reward. Grateful for the opportunity. 

• I don't have as many sweet drinks these days but I do find myself at least a smidge interested in checking out a few of the seasonal drinks released this time of year, so some slight detours may have been taken on my way home from a couple of long walks this week, lol. Yaaay for gift cards! 🙌🏼 

              🍯 Peet’s Ginger Spritz on one of the sunnier, warmer days we had.

              ☕ Starbucks Chestnut Praline Latte (hot) with almond milk and half the usual pumps of syrup. I ended up saving this for when I got home and paired it with a square of seed butter pralines I was generously gifted by a very thoughtful friend. Both were delicious; ngl, the seed butter praline - yum! Better than the chestnut praline latte. That treat should be made into a drink. 😋 I was good and kept to this large piece; for that day, at least. 😉

• Brain Teasers - I’ve been switching off and on between NYT Connections and Wordle every couple of weeks, playing one or the other about 3-4 times per week. I may try something new next week, to keep things fresh and my noggin’ 🧠 sharp. 😆

• Treat Yourself - ohhhhh yeeeaaah, we’ve started on this one pretty early on! 🛍 More details on those hauls to come on the Delectable December Hauls 2025 thread.

[caitbird]

@itsfi  great job with your wellness progress - love your double praline treat, that sounds so good! I've heard of Wordle, but not Connections, but I see you've explained it below - it sounds kind of fun! I need to find a good daily (or at least a few times a week) brain teaser activity to add to my routine, so maybe I'll check this one out.

[Samtian]

@itsfi Close to a bingo already! Interesting sounding drinks and treats. Never heard of the connections game. 

[itsfi]

I had to look at the board; yes! I should have put on some music in the background and I'd have bingo, @Samtian. I should be more attentive to what activities I'm marking off in relation to the board, I guess, lol! I haven't been to coffee shops as often so the ginger spritzer was a new one - it was okay, I can see myself trying to recreate it at home, but changing things up a little bit. 😆 

Okay, let me see if I can explain Connections. Essentially, every day a board is posted with 16 words on it. The 16 words contain 4 groups of 4 words that are somehow grouped together, each group has a different level of difficulty. The goal is to figure out which 4 words are grouped togehter. The New York Times releases a different Connections game every day at midnight. There are sites that have previous games you can play. I included an older game in the spoiler to better demonstrate how to play the game. The basic set up is generally the same though there are some differences between how it shows up on the NYT (vs whatever company is posting the older games). 

Spoiler

Using the game from January 1, 2025 (figured that goes back far enough that people who are currently playing it have already completed that one. If you have not and were planning on doing that one, stop now and do not look ahead. I'll leave some space so answers don't get spoiled ...


***
This is how the January 1, 2025 Connections board looked like

- So, 16 words arranged in four rows and four columns
- You're allowed a certain number of mistakes - 4
- Shuffle - you can shuffle the placement of the words in case seeing them positioned differently on the board might help with your word association. 
- Deselect All - if you picked / selected / highlighted a few words but want to deselect all of them at once, you can press this tab
- Submit - when you have grouped 4 words together that you think belong together, you select / hit "Submit" and see whether your proposed grouping is correct. 

Okay, let's play.

Here, I've selected "Glowstick" + "Firefly" + "Radium" + "Aurora" with the idea that these 4 words should be grouped together because they are things that glow. After hitting "Submit", this is what appears on the screen (for the game as shown on the site that has past NYT Connections game - NOTE: this shows up a little differently on the actual New York Times site / app) - 

So, those 4 words were correctly grouped together - "Things That Luminesce". I mentioned there are 4 categories / groupings for each game, each with a different level of difficulty. The groups and level of difficulty are by color. My recollection is that the degree of difficulty is, by color, from easiest to hardest - yellow (easiest), blue, green, purple (most challenging), but I think that depends on the player. There are times when I cannot figure out the yellow grouping or when I can only figure out the yellow group by figuring out all the other ones first. lol

Alright, now that the first group of 4 has been correctly identified, onto finding out another group of 4.




This time, I chose "Earthworm" + "Slug" + "Salamander" + "Eel" and grouping them as having in common that they are animals or "slippery little suckers" 🤣 Yes, @Samtian, this is how my brain works sometimes. hahaha! I hit "Submit" and this is what pops up - 


"Slimy Animals" 

Fine. I suppose that is more eloquently stated but "slippery little suckers" seemed just right to me. 😂 Moving on to the next group of four, but before doing so, I selected "Shuffle" and it moved the remaining words around so that they now show up like this - 


Hmmmmm ...


Going with "Windmill" + "Clog" + "Tulip" + "Canal" being things from or known as being connected with The Netherlands or the Dutch. Hit "Submit" and ...


Dutch Symbols. Got it.

That leaves, by process of elimination, the last 4 words to be grouped and submitted together - "Raindrop" + "Gatecrash" + Skydive" + "Waterfall" but I don't know what the association of those words would be. 



Final results

Spoiler

That last one, the purple category, the most challenging, what they have in common is that the ending of each of the four words is synonymous with "plunge". 

Yeah, sometimes that's how the connections work. There's also been groupings where the words are commonly part of ____keeper, like bee + book + gate + goal 

There you have it. You can play Connections on the NYT's app or just through the website, whether or not you are subscribed to the NYT, but there are, of course, certain benefits and perks that come with subscription to the NYT.

Maybe worth giving a try, Samtian?

[Samtian]

@itsfi Oh wow that sounds kinda fun, I'm going to go play it now, thanks!