Whipped up a quick word ladder after a 7-week break for today’s special occasion. Enjoy, and feedback welcome as always! Cover photo by Erik Dungan on Unsplash.
Thanks for solving and glad you enjoyed! 16A was definitely inspired by prior NYT clues, but most of the rest (including 10A and 11A) were originals (while I tried to keep enough of them very vanilla to keep the overall puzzle accessible and not take too long to solve).