Sorry about the lateness of this blog. But it is Christmas, after all.
Hoskins referred to this puzzle the other day, suggesting that it wasn’t going to be easy; I was very concerned, remembering how difficult he can be: I am one of the slower solvers around but I hardly ever fail to solve crosswords eventually, although the time taken can be embarrassing. However, shortly after Hoskins started to set for the Sunday Times he inflicted on us what was the hardest crossword I have ever done and I had to admit defeat. (But it was football-themed, so that’s my excuse.)
But this one was not in the same league, ho-ho. It was a very pleasant crossword, easily accessible, and with a whole lot of excellent clues. Over the years there must have been a vast number of Christmas-themed crosswords, but without my looking back at them all, I’d say confidently that many of these clues used ideas that have never been used before.
Definitions underlined in maroon; anagram indicators in italics.