Enigmatic Variations No.1362 – Christmas Eve by Augicea

“The unclued entries (6,4 and 5,5,6) were responsible for the thematic event which took place on CHRISTMAS EVE. Across and down clues clash in seven cells. In each across clue there is an extra word which must be removed before solving. The middle letters of these words, read in clue order, give a phrase that cryptically tells solvers which of the clashing letters must be chosen; not all resulting entries are real words. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; one answer is a variant spelling that can be found in the Oxford Dictionary of English.”

The unclued entries are JOSEPH MOHR and FRANZ XAVER GRUBER. #

The clashes are all along the NW-SE diagonal, which spells out either SILENT NIGHT or STILLE NACHT.

The middle letters of the extra words spell out SELECT POOR MANGER, which is a cryptic way of telling solvers to SELECT GERMAN (MANGER being a ‘POOR’ (anagrammed) GERMAN, so STILLE NACHT it is.

I really enjoyed this puzzle, but I must say that 5 down was particularly magnificent.

Unfortunately, I cannot fully parse 11 across or 14 down.

Notation
(xxx) = definition
[xxx] = (anagram/homophone/container/etc.) indicator
XXX* = anagram
< = reversal
dusty = additional word

Please post a comment if the explanations are not clear.