It apppears that Lionheart has compiled four Christmas Listeners previously and with the title ‘Give and Take’ we suspect that this will be another.
We need to read the preamble more than once to work out his complex system. In paired clues, one will give a letter (after solving) to the other to enable the latter to be solved. Those letters will give us an instruction.
‘Apart from clue 20’ – that is where we start and the generous clue ‘Prepare for posting by way of “twist” of scene in The Gift of the Magi” gives us FRANK + SCENEIN* = FRANKINCENSE so that we already know where to place some of the paired down clues, so that the lower half of the grid fills speedily.
Of course this is Christmassy so Leonheart retains his Listener Oenophile rating with ‘Spook merry once leading Russian sot drinks litre’. We opt for SMILEY for the spook, then move his P to the other half of the clue, sot becoming sPot and we put the Litre into STAIN to give STALIN. Then we have ‘Leo smuggling substantive wine…’ That is a tough clue, we opt for definition ‘wine’ (LISBON given by Bradford under wine) Leo is LION (astrology) containing sb which Chambers gives as an abbreviation of ‘substantive’. Cheers, Lionheart!
The top section is more of a struggle as we have been told ‘where an across entry would require two letters in a cell, only the letter checked by a down entry must be entered. WATCHES and HAIRIER establish which set of answers go where and it slowly becomes clear that the letters not to be entered will fit into those two clues, and, what’s more, that they spell CHAIN and COMB.
APPLY CLUE TWENTY TO GRID we are told by the letters we didn’t enter. Time to consult solving mate Wiki who tells us ‘The Gift of the Magi by O.Henry tells of poor, loving newlyweds … Della sells her prized long hair to buy a platinum chain for Jim’s heirloom watch, while Jim sells the watch to buy combs for Della’s hair’. So there we have it!
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We adjust my grid and delete the watch and the hair replacing them with the chain and comb. Thankyou Lionheart.