Christmas Trivia Questions and Answers for Families and Parties

Below are 38 Christmas trivia questions and answers in four groups: easy questions for kids, general questions for adults, hard questions for people who think they know everything, and a quick true or false round. None of them are about films or song lyrics, so nobody wins just because they watch a lot of TV. Read them out at the table, or use them for a team quiz at a party.

The answer comes right after each question, in bold. If you're reading these Christmas trivia questions and answers aloud, cover the bold part with a sheet of paper.

Easy Christmas trivia questions for kids

These work for children from about five up. Read the question twice and give small kids a hint if the table goes quiet.

1. What do you call a ring of green branches that people hang on the front door? A wreath.
2. What do reindeer have on their heads? Antlers.
3. What do you call the shape you make by lying in the snow and moving your arms and legs? A snow angel.
4. What is usually used for a snowman's nose? A carrot.
5. What is the name of the calendar with a little door to open for each day before Christmas? An Advent calendar.
6. What do you call the people who go from door to door singing at Christmas? Carolers.
7. What do you ride down a snowy hill? A sled.
8. What is the day before Christmas Day called? Christmas Eve.
9. Which plant with prickly green leaves and red berries is used to decorate at Christmas? Holly.
10. What paper tube goes bang when two people pull it, and has a paper hat inside? A Christmas cracker.
11. Which holiday comes exactly one week after Christmas Day? New Year's Day.
12. What warm drink is made with chocolate and milk and often topped with marshmallows? Hot chocolate.

Christmas trivia questions for adults

These are general knowledge questions about Christmas customs around the world.

1. Which saint's feast day falls on December 26 in the Western church? St. Stephen.
2. Who wrote the music for the ballet The Nutcracker? Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
3. Many Orthodox churches, for example in Russia and Serbia, celebrate Christmas on which date? January 7.
4. The French word Noël comes from a Latin word meaning what? Birth (natalis).
5. Which country sends a large Christmas tree to Trafalgar Square in London every year? Norway.
6. The wise men brought gold, frankincense and what? Myrrh.
7. Nuremberg's famous Christmas market is named after which gift-bringer? The Christkind (the market is the Christkindlesmarkt).
8. In which country's capital do people roller-skate to early morning church services in the days before Christmas? Venezuela (Caracas).
9. Who is said to have set up the first living nativity scene, in Greccio in 1223? St. Francis of Assisi.
10. Before it meant Christmas, what was Yule? A midwinter festival of the Germanic peoples.
11. Turrón, the almond and honey nougat eaten at Christmas, comes from which country? Spain.
12. Which Swedish town builds a giant straw Yule goat every year? Gävle.

Hard Christmas trivia questions

Save these for the last round, or for a tiebreaker between two teams who got everything else right.

1. In which year did Christmas Day become a federal holiday in the United States? 1870.
2. The oldest known record of Christmas on December 25 comes from a Roman calendar of which year? AD 354.
3. What is the Italian-American Christmas Eve dinner of many seafood dishes called? The Feast of the Seven Fishes.
4. Which U.S. president lit the first National Christmas Tree, in 1923? Calvin Coolidge.
5. Who made the first Advent wreath, in Hamburg in 1839? Johann Hinrich Wichern, a Lutheran pastor.
6. Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean belongs to which country? Australia.
7. In 1647, England's Parliament banned what? Christmas celebrations.
8. What is the botanical name of the holly genus? Ilex.

True or false Christmas trivia

True or false questions are quick, and they work well while people are still arriving. Players can call out the answer or vote with a thumbs up or down.

1. Pictures of Father Christmas have always shown him in red. False. Older pictures often show him in green and other colors.
2. Poinsettias are deadly to cats. False. They can upset a cat's stomach, but they're only mildly toxic.
3. Christmas Day and the following New Year's Day always fall on the same day of the week. True. They are exactly seven days apart.
4. The word "tinsel" comes from an old French word for a spark. True.
5. There is a town called Santa Claus in the United States. True. It's in Indiana.
6. Bethlehem is more than 100 miles from Jerusalem. False. The two are about 6 miles apart.

How to run a Christmas trivia round

A trivia round works best in teams, so that people who don't know much Christmas history still have fun. Here is a simple way to run one at home or at a party.

1. Make teams of three to five. Mix the ages, and split up couples and close friends.
2. Give each team a sheet and a pen. They write the question number and their answer. No phones on the table.
3. Read each question twice. Give about 30 seconds to agree on an answer, then move on.
4. Swap sheets to mark. After ten questions, teams pass their sheets to the left, the host reads the answers, and each team marks another team's sheet.
5. Keep a scoreboard. Write the totals where everyone can see them after each round.
6. Have a tiebreaker ready. Ask a question with a number for an answer, such as the year Christmas became a U.S. federal holiday. The closest guess wins.

Multiple choice makes a quiz fairer for mixed groups. With four options, even a guess has a chance, and kids can play on the same team as adults. If young children are playing, give them their own easy round where only they may answer.

How many questions to plan for

A round of 10 questions takes about 10 to 15 minutes, counting reading, thinking and marking. Three or four rounds make a good trivia night of 30 to 60 minutes. For a family table after dinner, one round of each group above is plenty.

Put the easy round first and the hard round last, so everyone has scored something before the difficult questions start.

If you want a ready-made quiz

Our Christmas trivia game has 100 multiple-choice questions in five rounds of 20: Around the World, Christmas History, Winter Science & Nature, Food, Treats & Decorations, and a Kids' Round. It comes with team answer sheets, a scoreboard for up to eight teams, five tiebreakers and an answer key. None of its questions repeat the ones on this page.

For other games that suit the same party, Christmas picture bingo lets kids who can't read yet play with the grown-ups, and Christmas Would You Rather needs no scoring at all. Our guide to Christmas party games has more ideas for mixed ages.