Turn up for christmas work with an emperor (8)

I believe the answer is:

napoleon

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'emperor' is the definition.
(I know that Napoleon is a emperor)

'turn up for christmas work with an' is the wordplay.
'turn up' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'for christmas' becomes 'noel' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'work' becomes 'op' (abbreviation for opus).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'noel'+'op'+'an'='noelopan'
'noelopan' written backwards gives 'NAPOLEON'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for napoleon that I've seen before include "Cake" , "Former French gold coin" , "French emperor, d.1821" , "Gold twenty franc piece" , "Ex-dictator" .)

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.

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