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A themed Everyman for Christmas that contains lots of festive food and, on occasion, what might be needed if one overindulges:-)

I thnk this is a bit more difficult than usual, but this may be explained by Everyman having to fit in particular food items. That said, there are a number of anagrams along with 'hidden' and 'primarily' clues to ease the way.

COD: Nothing jumped out on me (you Grinch Bren!) but I did quite like 2d.

Thanks to Everyman for a festive puzzle to enjoy before we start the cooking and wrapping and... 😃

Merry Chistmas to all the Everyman solvers 🍷

Stay safe:-)

Thanks to Everyman. I found this on the difficult side.
A puzzle whose every clue is thematic. Although 16 and 22 might detract from the festive spirit. 😬

I like 9 and 16 for C(s)OD.

Not clear about 13...first word is obvious, I made a plausible guess for the second word but don't see what it has to do with "conference".

11 is also a good clue.

Hi Geeker,

13a - "conference" is a type of ???? (a food item) and the second word is the group it belongs to.

Thanks, brendan. I didn't know that! I've been trying to avoid using Google while solving puzzles. My guess was correct.

Conference was my COD last week.

Only eaten the bottom half so far - I’ll save the top till tomorrow.

Nollaig Shona daoibh go léir.

I saw in the Guardian Prize thread you were trying to avoid Google as a solving aid. I use it for most cryptic puzzles, especially the barred ones.

I was at a loose end and fancied a laugh so decided to rewatch the "Washington's Dream" skit on SNL. In part of it Washington says "we will get rid of U in a lot of British words like colour and armour but, by God, we will keep the British U in the word glamour". I only mention it because I bknow you sometimes put the U in brackets in some of your posts - is that right about glamour?

More strange behaviour with the paywall. This week it let me in without payment, but after 6 minutes it changed its mind, and I had to go to another browser to start again.

As for the crossword, I'm failing to parse more than usual for an Everyman:
9ac Can't parse the first 4 letters
18ac I kinda get it, but don't really like it if my parsing is correct
14d Not getting the first word (currently looking like a homonym)
15d I have a food (or two) to put in there, but can't see how it relates to either the definition or cryptic parts of the clue. But given the crossers there can't be too many words it can be.

Hi Plutocrat,

9a - parses 3,1,4 but it's all reversed so the 4 comes at the beginning in reverse and is clued by "left" as in communist.

18a - 2 definitions of "home" one 4 and the other 2

14d - first 3 letters are "catch" followed by "intro to elegant"

15d - is a homophone of "writer emits shrill laugh" with the writer a single letter. It's a single food item one eats for dessert.

Brendan, I use the (u) as a semi-joke, being a relatively rare American cryptic buff.

My impression is that US usage in "glamorous" usually drops the (first) u.
I'd thought the same for "glamor". But, weirdly, the NY-based fashion magazine has always been entitled "Glamour".

On further investigation (Google 'glamour us spelling'), US usage generally has the "u", but "glamor" is also accepted, as is "glamourous". And to make things stranger, "glamorize" is standard US usage.

Google's AI bot says:

The word comes from Scottish English (meaning "magic spell") rather than directly from Latin or French, so it wasn't caught in Noah Webster's spelling reforms for '-our' words.