Why the New York Times Crossword is the best subscription you can get

This past summer, I downloaded the New York Times Crossword app along with all the free puzzles available. On my family’s trip to Iceland that August, we spent hours in the car driving from glacier to waterfall, reading clues aloud and solving the puzzles together.

What traffic looks like in Mýrdalshreppur

Come December, my whole family had downloaded the app and we were pretty quickly running through our free puzzle options. A few times, I was nearly seduced into buying a ten-pack of fresh, untouched puzzles for $2.99, and would dream longingly of the $39.95 yearly subscription. Instead, I kept my head down and tried to crack the 15-letter-word for “elemental parts of human nature” (upon returning to this now I’ve figured out that it’s “animal instincts”).

Thankfully, for Christmas my dad gave our family the gift that keeps on giving: the New York Times Crossword yearly subscription. Now, I can’t imagine why we ever – or anyone would ever – hesitate making this purchase. Out of all the dizzying, mind-numbing subscriptions you can have these days (and believe me, my family has them all), the NYTimes Crossword will be your best dollar spent.

Thanks to five family members each with different interests (my younger brother Hugo has watched over 500 hours of Naruto), we’ve amassed an almost shameful amount of subscriptions. Between Spotify, Disney+ and Acorn TV (yes, that exists), the NYTimes Crossword is the only subscription I’ve ever felt truly bettered by.

I’ve found the crossword to be a great outlet for stress, a way to improve your vocabulary, and even surprisingly social. Unless it’s a mini or a Monday puzzle (they start off easy and get harder as the week goes on), or unless you’re some type of random trivia genius, it’s hard to solve these puzzles on your own.

I’ll get stuck on the 7-letter-word for “Many-time NHL All-Star Jagr” and my dad will save the day knowing it’s “Jaromir.” I’ll know that the “mythical being depicted in bronze in Copenhagen Harbor” is a mermaid. The 7-letter-word for “Speed that would enable a 23-minute D.C.-to-L.A. flight” will stump me, but my boyfriend Ian will know that’s “Mach six.” And every working brain in the room will be needed to crack the 21-letters with the clue “1/x, for x,” (it’s “multiplicative inverse” and math isn’t really our thing).

My dad, my brother Axel, and I have an ongoing competition to see who can get the best time on the daily mini. Instead of playing Candy Crush while she waits in the school pick-up line, my mom will take a stab at the daily puzzle. The crossword provides for some productive screen time that doesn’t make you feel like you’re actively losing brain cells.

As an ice breaker for one of my classes this semester, we had to go around the room, introduce ourselves, and share what our favorite gift we received over the holidays was (yes, weird and potentially problematic). Amid enough AirPods and Apple Watches to fill an Apple Store, I told the class that my favorite gift was the NYTimes Crossword subscription.

I either sounded like the most boring human on the planet or like I was totally on to something. I’m going with the latter.

So do yourself a favor and add the NYTimes Crossword to your collection of subscriptions (and probably cancel shit like Acorn TV while you’re at it).