Christmas Crossword 2025

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Across
  1. 3. My local overground line was renamed this in honor of a hospital that was pioneering in HIV/AIDS care
  2. 7. Oxford’s Word of the Year describing deliberately provocative online content
  3. 8. The ancient Albanian archaeological site with Greek and Roman layers
  4. 10. This show celebrated its 50th season this year
  5. 12. This celebration of the Vatican’s once-in-25-years Holy Year took place in Rome this year
  6. 14. The Los Angeles tower where Christmas turns explosive
  7. 18. The employment category central to civil-service restructuring
  8. 19. The title and artist are the same for this 1993 UK Christmas Number One
  9. 20. The Albanian “city of a thousand windows”
  10. 21. These are a Christmas Eve dinner staple in many Mexican-American households
  11. 25. The name of the Hampstead pub were we did two pub quizzes this year
  12. 27. This year’s highly anticipated sequel featuring pink and green witches was a flop compared to the first film
  13. 28. Incoming NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani’s middle name
  14. 29. Magazine that ran hilariously unflattering photos of Trump's cabinet
  15. 31. The Italian-American jazz pianist behind the Peanuts Christmas soundtrack
Down
  1. 1. The mechanism ending a parliamentary session before a new agenda
  2. 2. This plant is named after the first US ambassador to Mexico
  3. 4. A type of tinsel still common on German Christmas trees
  4. 5. The longest namesake of the classical streets in my new neighbourhood
  5. 6. The historic West End theatre where we saw Hercules - no relation to the Muffin Man
  6. 9. Surname associated with Albania’s most infamous political “suicide” - we saw his flat!
  7. 11. Medieval spiced drink linked to early English Christmas customs - it will have you feeling warm and fuzzy
  8. 13. The fictional town saved from ruin in It’s a Wonderful Life
  9. 15. The sibling duo whose Christmas album charted for decades
  10. 16. The number of days the government shutdown this year lasted — the longest in US history
  11. 17. The Community Centre where the food hub runs out of is named this after former railway ______ on the site
  12. 22. The app where I track my routes as an avid walker and burgeoning runner!
  13. 23. Albania’s name in its own language
  14. 24. This choral work is often programmed in Christmas Eve services - have mercy on anyone who hears us sing it!
  15. 26. Christmas crackers were first popularised in this era in England
  16. 30. This hero had to fetch mistletoe to offer to Persephone to enter the underworld