He will famously stuff them again for a New York City Thanksgiving dance, and possibly soon (8)
Hmmm, this Bluebeard’s castle is quite the elaborate structure, eh? I eventually got into room 7, and wow, the puzzle in there is hard. I too needed Robot Arm’s suggestion that “Taggee” = IT. Don’t think I would have got that by myself, and I was at the point of wondering if some of the clues worked differently.
As for the denoument, I’ve been chopping away at everything in sight as I’m sure you have, but I’ve got nothing yet. I’m starting to wonder if the phrase in the article is literally what we’re looking for, so I have just been looking for anything meaningful. But still no joy.
Even though it refers to “clues in the larger grid”, I’m wondering if it means answers in the grid. The same ambiguity is present in the preamble, where it talks about “nearby clues”, but seems to mean answers.
There’s that odd phrase “concretely-deduced”, and “secrets within the castle walls.” I tried looking around the edge of the grid. There is TALES, in fact ES TALES traced out in the upper left corner. Also, OLD appears backwards in the grid. I can’t see any WIV(ES), though.
I think that phrase is exactly what we are looking for. The question I have is: how does the answer we got from the shaded area help us find the phrase. Because original solvers would not have the answer from the article and would have been expected to deduce it themselves. How?
Christmas flyer shared secret (6)
dasher (shared)
Next: *The First Noel * (4)
Spirited New Mexico Santa is Colts’ player Hilton (6)
Jack hopes somehow he was there for the birth of Jesus (6)
Just after the beginning of December, drone bombs one of Santa’s team (6)
No one else interested in Christmas cryptics?
×××××
Jesus’ birth site is firmly established (6)
The February 2017 issue of Games magazine (available now) has about a ten-page section of Cryptic puzzles. I do not have a copy, at least not yet.
Stable.
(Hurray! I got one!)
Nice job!
I look forward to the next *Games * arriving in the mail! This month’s *Wall Street Journal *puzzle Round Table was excellent too.
××××
He used to be a fixture on New Year’s Eve playing *Ladybug Room *(3, 8)
Like a wrapped Christmas present Actor Beatty found after mid-January?..I think not. (8)
This is the only place I can find on the internet where Bluebeard’s Castle is being worked on! Like many on this thread, I’ve been stuck in room 7 awhile, and I think I have a solution, but I can’t quite confirm all the wordplay (nor do I quite understand the “shady revelation” if I’m right).
Before I figure out Spoiler mode and lay out what I’ve got, let me say: I think PEATS and VELDT are wrong, and I’ll lead off with that…
7a.
I think the wordplay is on target but the sense of Scotch concoctions is wrong, it’s not the peaty liquor, it’s the TAPES.
Fairly synonymous with VELDT would be HEATH, which fits better with the other clues in the grid, but I’m not feeling airtight with the wordplay. Bush is the definition, and after applying keys we have “Tah Ta ehitokiap about passes by”… oh… hah, just finally saw it, it’s a reverse hidden clue: “h Ta eh” viewed “about”… not sure how “passes by” indicates a hidden clue, but evidently it does. Moving on!
Pausing there in case anyone wants to use that to get back on track. Next I’ll go into the answers with wordplay I can’t parse, in hopes someone can explain or correct it… all order is capricious and arbitrary! 
After keys, “Pet one of these…easte??”
The answer I propose is DOTEE, for definition “Pet” - i.e., one doted on. And I think the trick is that “one of these” is referring to the ellipses, i.e., a “dot”. Which leaves only converting “easte??” into “ee”… which seems plausible, but not clear to me. The double question mark may be as deliberate as the dots were, but to what end? Am I just supposed to parse it as “east e” = “ee” and the ?? gives me that permission? Feels thin, but what could I be missing?
After keys, “Hike seas hie”
I propose that “hie” is the definition and the answer is “SPEED” - as a verb, synonyms of “hurry”. Mostly because it fits my grid (though I could have something wrong). No idea what wordplay of “Hike seas” could get there. Anyone see an angle?
After keys, “Yak, take in on the spot”
Since it does the most to fit my grid, I think the answer is HERE (for def. “on the spot”)… but “Yak, take in” wordplaying… oh wait… once again typing it out helped me see it – it’s a homophone! Yak is to say “take in”, or “hear”, out loud. Ship it!
3
After keys, “Subject of hook spot that thou packeth”
Because it fits the grid, I suspect the answer is SMEE, def. for “Subject of hook” (as in Captain Hook). But “spot that thou packeth” as wordplay eludes me completely. Maybe you can derive M from “thou” as in thousand. But then you’d need “spot” to be SEE and “packeth” to indicate a container and okay, maybe that works. Geez, why didn’t I try typing this all out weeks ago?
And these I’m feeling pretty solid on, so only check if and when you’re stuck…
1d.
After keys, “He takes Bkitannia’s Apex & Taggee”
Taggee for “IT” is spot-on, as was the assertion that only the B (the apex) matters from the gibberished word. The tricky part is the ampersand hiding in plain sight. B-AND-IT, for “He takes”.
After keys, “Essayist’s sick teets this: C/2[pi]”
Thanks for “Radius” - geometry’s rusty and that would have been obnoxious to google.
So, if “sick” tells us to scramble “teets” then we can get to TESTE+R, or someone that might be writing an essay.
After keys, “Squashes 500 gets on Eight a bit, as. stocks”
The hard part here is that I was unfamiliar with this definition of Squash, but apparently it can be a type of beverage. Having confirmed that via googling, I think the wordplay is clear: AS “stocks” (contains) 500 (roman “D”) + “a bit” of “Eight” aka “E”= ADES
1a.
After keys, “Beat, taking heap, sans Ap’s boss’s say”
Def: “Boss’s say”
Wordplay: Beat = BEST, “taking” HEAP SANS AP, aka HE
Answer: BEHEST
After keys, “He keeps in Note”
Double definition: “He keeps in”/“Note” as in $$
Answer: TENDER
7d.
After keys, “Tot Eolfe” exhibits object you took on jaunt"
Def: “object you took on jaunt”
Wordplay: hidden clue
Answer: TOTE
So… IF all of that’s right, the shaded cells spell out:
BEHEADMENTSTHEEND
… so we’re cutting off the heads (or maybe the ends) of some things, but what? How to parse the MENTS part? Even having seen what I suspect to be a spoiler of the final phrase, I don’t see the path.
Is that revelation “apt in itself”…? What clues could it apply to? Is “concretely-deduced” a huge hint I’m missing? Can anyone suss out the next step in the denouement? Is that an [N13] or an [NI3] after hint h., and what do either of them mean???
Hope this helps somebody and thanks to anyone who can further chip in…!
I have further learned that…
“Beheadment”
…is a puzzling term in its own right. But I still haven’t any sense of which clues to apply it to.
I couldn’t parse the wordplay in that clue, but I think you’ve got it. east-e => E E
Seas = DEEPS, and raise, or “hike”, that.
Another one I couldn’t parse, well done. I though “yak” might be a variant of “yuk”, giving HEE, and “take” could be standard crossword-speak for R (from “recipe”, which apparently means “take”.)
Agreed that the others are relatively straightforward. I stress “relatively” ;).
As for the phrase in the shaded cells, I don’t know what to do with it, but I do think that “concretely-deduced” and “secrets within the castle walls” are hinting at something.
Meant to add that I would guess that “NI3” after that one clue means that the answer is a word in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, or some other major dictionary? In other words, it’s letting you know that it’s a pretty obscure word.
*Born on the Fourth of July * is like *The Thin Man * (4)
Okay, I think I’ve almost got it. Is the "shady phrase"BEHEADMENTS THE END?