| AUSTRALIAN | ___ Open first annual Grand Slam tennis event of the year and the largest annual sporting event in the Southern Hemisphere |
| DERBYDAY | Annual sporting event in English city, always after first of December (5,3) |
| WIMBLEDON | Annual grand slam tennis championship first won by Spencer Gore in 1877 (9) |
| ROLAND | ___-Garros (annual Grand Slam event) |
| LITHUANIA | Country in which Holy Meal (on Christmas Eve) is the most important event of the year |
| USOPEN | Last Grand Slam event of the year |
| NB | Port Charles' fundraising event of the year (init.) |
| OSCAR | Playwright's first annual award (5) |
| SAHL | First Annual Grammy Awards host Mort |
| TOMMYROT | Conservative minister's first annual check up? Balderdash! (8) |
| JAN | Abbr. for the first month of the year (and the first name of the creator who makes your Kids Across Parents Down puzzles) |
| SHEVAT | The fifth month of the civil year and the eleventh month of the ecclesiastical year in the Hebrew calendar |
| APRIL | From a Latin word meaning "to open", thought to allude to buds and flowers opening in spring, the fourth month of the year and the one in which Cuckoo Day falls (5) |
| LOBETHAL | Beginning in the 1950s, in which Adelaide Hills town is one of the state's largest annual displays of Christmas lights? (8) |
| BENITOSANTIAGO | 'Capitalist' catcher who was the 1987 N.L. Rookie of the Year and the 2002 NLCS MVP |
| FROISSART | Medieval historian whose Chronicles chart the events of the Hundred Years' War including the accession of Edward III, the Battle of Crecy and the Peasants' Revolt (9) |
| ANNAL | A register of the events of the year by Anne and Albert |
| GIF | Oxford American Dictionary's 2012 word of the year, and the key to this puzzle's theme |
| BILBO | Hobbit who found the One Ring, setting in motion the events of The Lord of the Rings |
| BYGONES | Might the song be about the year and the past happenings? (7) |
