Accidents fail to restrict Ray following United beyond pre-Christmas period (13)
I believe the answer is:
misadventures
'accidents' is the definition.
(misadventure is a kind of accident)
'fail to restrict ray following united beyond pre-christmas period' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'ray' could be 're' (ray is another spelling of the musical note re) and 're' is found in the answer.
'united' could be 'u' and 'u' is found in the answer.
'period' could be 'advent' (Advent is an example) and 'advent' is located in the answer.
'fail' could be 'miss' (missing is a kind of failing) and 'miss' is present in the remaining letters.
No letters remain.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for misadventures that I've seen is " Accidents".)