The holidays are a time for connecting with friends and family, either by gathering in person or checking in remotely. So, naturally, you might think phone calls would be at their highest during the festive stretch at the end of the year. But according to new figures shared with CNET by AT&T, another holiday got the highest number of calls in 2025. Which one?

The answer might give you chills: AT&T’s subscribers conjured up around 651 million phone calls on… Halloween. The company shared no other data besides the massive number, leading me to wonder why the spooky season inspired so many calls. Lost trick-or-treaters calling their parents for rides? People in costumes at parties accidentally butt-dialing their friends? Poltergeists pilfering people’s phones? Only the spirits truly know.

Despite that one-day call volume, texting is vastly more popular than phone calls over the course of the year. Through Dec. 9, 2025, the network registered almost three times more texts than calls: 525 billion texts sent vs. 181 billion calls made during the year.

And the top texting day? Dec. 1, 2025, with around 2.3 billion (specifically 2,264,041,461) messages sent.

These figures represent traffic on AT&T’s mobile network, which does not include its home or business broadband services. And, of course, it’s a snapshot of just one provider. AT&T has around 119 million subscribers, according to Wikipedia.

When you’re looking at phone plans, even unlimited phone plans, using tens of gigabytes of data during a month sounds like a lot. But at the network level, the scale is staggering, even in limited areas.

For example, AT&T also broke out its three largest data events in 2025: Mardi Gras (March 4) logged 57.5 terabytes; South-by-Southwest (SXSW) (March 7 to 15) went through 34.1 terabytes; and the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix (May 4) burned 24 terabytes. (One terabyte is roughly equal to 1,000 gigabytes.)

Overall, across all of AT&T’s networks — mobile, broadband and enterprise — the company reported average data traffic of 1 exabyte per day. That’s 1 million terabytes.

With massive communications infrastructure built over the last few decades by AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and others, we’re likely long past the days of phone networks getting clogged by the surge of calls on Christmas Day.

So make a point of calling your family this holiday, or at least send a text. The network should be able to handle it.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun seasonal theme, and it’s not terribly tough. But if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Br-r-r-r-r!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Hand me my jacket!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• COLA, CHIP, CHILL, HILL, SONG, RIGID, PILL, CARL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• CHILLY, POLAR, COLD, COOL, FREEZING, FRIGID, GLACIAL

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is NOTSOHOT. To find it, start with the N that’s four letters to the right on the top row, and wind down.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest in recent weeks.

#1: Dated slang, Jan. 21. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! Jan.15. I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT. 

#3: Off the hook, Jan. 9. Similar to the Jan. 15 puzzle in that it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? There’s a fun little meta clue for regular solvers in 7-Across. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: S, as in shaker
Answer: SALT

5A clue: Cawing bird
Answer: CROW

6A clue: ___ shrimp (oxymoron)
Answer: JUMBO

7A clue: Most common instrument in New York Times crosswords, with over 800 appearances
Answer: OBOE

8A clue: Units of corn
Answer: EARS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Kind of gear for diving
Answer: SCUBA

2D clue: Knight’s protection
Answer: ARMOR

3D clue: Brain sections
Answer: LOBES

4D clue: Number of teeth for Goofy
Answer: TWO

6D clue: Presidential first name of the 2020s
Answer: JOE

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.