Christmas trivia questions and answers
33 questions about Christmas songs, stories, films and traditions, at three levels. Every answer has the source we checked it against right next to it, so when someone at the table says "that is wrong", you can settle it in ten seconds. Play them as a quiz on one phone, or print a question sheet and an answer key.
Christmas trivia quiz mode
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Easy Christmas trivia (good for kids)
In the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas", what does the true love give on the first day?
Answer: A partridge in a pear tree
In "The Twelve Days of Christmas", how many gold rings arrive on the fifth day?
Answer: Five
In the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the Night Before Christmas"), how many reindeer pull the sleigh?
Answer: Eight
In "A Christmas Carol", what is Scrooge's first name?
Answer: Ebenezer
In "A Christmas Carol", what is the name of Bob Cratchit's youngest son?
Answer: Tiny Tim
In "A Christmas Carol", how many spirits does Marley's ghost tell Scrooge to expect?
Answer: Three
What color is Rudolph the reindeer's nose?
Answer: Red
Which ballet takes place on Christmas Eve, when a toy given as a gift comes to life?
Answer: The Nutcracker
In Dr. Seuss's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!", how many sizes does the Grinch's heart grow?
Answer: Three
What is the name of the Grinch's dog?
Answer: Max
Medium Christmas trivia
In "The Twelve Days of Christmas", how many lords are a-leaping?
Answer: Ten
Who wrote "A Christmas Carol"?
Answer: Charles Dickens
In "A Christmas Carol", what is the name of Scrooge's dead business partner, whose ghost visits him first?
Answer: Jacob Marley
Which singing cowboy took "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to number one in 1949?
Answer: Gene Autry
"Silent Night" was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 in which country?
Answer: Austria (in Oberndorf, near Salzburg)
In what language was "Silent Night" first written?
Answer: German ("Stille Nacht")
Who wrote the song "White Christmas"?
Answer: Irving Berlin
Who wrote and first recorded "Feliz Navidad"?
Answer: José Feliciano
Poinsettias grow wild in Central America and in which country?
Answer: Mexico
Who composed the music for "The Nutcracker"?
Answer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
What is the name of the town where the Whos live, below the Grinch's mountain?
Answer: Whoville
In the film "It's a Wonderful Life", what is the first name of George Bailey's guardian angel?
Answer: Clarence (Clarence Odbody)
The French Christmas cake bûche de Noël is shaped like what?
Answer: A log (it is also called a yule log cake)
Which New York City complex puts up a giant Christmas tree each year above its ice skating rink?
Answer: Rockefeller Center
Hard Christmas trivia questions
In what year was "A Visit from St. Nicholas" first published?
Answer: 1823 (in the Troy Sentinel, New York)
In what year was "A Christmas Carol" first published?
Answer: 1843
Rudolph first appeared in a 1939 booklet published by which department store chain?
Answer: Montgomery Ward
"Jingle Bells" was first copyrighted in 1857 under what title?
Answer: "The One Horse Open Sleigh"
In December 1965, astronauts played "Jingle Bells" from orbit. Which NASA flight were they on?
Answer: Gemini 6 (Gemini VI)
The poinsettia is named after Joel Roberts Poinsett. What post did he hold?
Answer: He was the first United States minister to Mexico
In which city did "The Nutcracker" first premiere, in December 1892?
Answer: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Saint Nicholas, the saint behind Santa Claus, was bishop of which ancient city?
Answer: Myra (now Demre, in Turkey)
In "It's a Wonderful Life", what is the name of George Bailey's hometown?
Answer: Bedford Falls
Printable Christmas trivia question sheet
Questions with a line for each answer. Print one per team. Choose which levels go on the sheet; the answer key below follows the same choice.
This is what prints: the question sheet, sized for US Letter. Use your browser's Print (Ctrl+P, Cmd+P on a Mac, or Share then Print on a phone).Another sheet on this page is set to print.
Christmas trivia Team: ______________________
- In the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas", what does the true love give on the first day?
- In "The Twelve Days of Christmas", how many gold rings arrive on the fifth day?
- In "The Twelve Days of Christmas", how many lords are a-leaping?
- In the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the Night Before Christmas"), how many reindeer pull the sleigh?
- In what year was "A Visit from St. Nicholas" first published?
- In "A Christmas Carol", what is Scrooge's first name?
- Who wrote "A Christmas Carol"?
- In "A Christmas Carol", what is the name of Scrooge's dead business partner, whose ghost visits him first?
- In what year was "A Christmas Carol" first published?
- In "A Christmas Carol", what is the name of Bob Cratchit's youngest son?
- In "A Christmas Carol", how many spirits does Marley's ghost tell Scrooge to expect?
- What color is Rudolph the reindeer's nose?
- Rudolph first appeared in a 1939 booklet published by which department store chain?
- Which singing cowboy took "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to number one in 1949?
- "Jingle Bells" was first copyrighted in 1857 under what title?
- In December 1965, astronauts played "Jingle Bells" from orbit. Which NASA flight were they on?
- "Silent Night" was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 in which country?
- In what language was "Silent Night" first written?
- Who wrote the song "White Christmas"?
- Who wrote and first recorded "Feliz Navidad"?
- Poinsettias grow wild in Central America and in which country?
- The poinsettia is named after Joel Roberts Poinsett. What post did he hold?
- Which ballet takes place on Christmas Eve, when a toy given as a gift comes to life?
- Who composed the music for "The Nutcracker"?
- In which city did "The Nutcracker" first premiere, in December 1892?
- In Dr. Seuss's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!", how many sizes does the Grinch's heart grow?
- What is the name of the Grinch's dog?
- What is the name of the town where the Whos live, below the Grinch's mountain?
- Saint Nicholas, the saint behind Santa Claus, was bishop of which ancient city?
- In the film "It's a Wonderful Life", what is the first name of George Bailey's guardian angel?
- In "It's a Wonderful Life", what is the name of George Bailey's hometown?
- The French Christmas cake bûche de Noël is shaped like what?
- Which New York City complex puts up a giant Christmas tree each year above its ice skating rink?
Printable answer key
The answers in the same order as the question sheet, with the source for each.
This is what prints: the answer key, sized for US Letter. Use your browser's Print (Ctrl+P, Cmd+P on a Mac, or Share then Print on a phone).Another sheet on this page is set to print.
Christmas trivia: answer key
- A partridge in a pear tree (Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song))
- Five (Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song))
- Ten (Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song))
- Eight (Wikipedia: A Visit from St. Nicholas)
- 1823 (in the Troy Sentinel, New York) (Wikipedia: A Visit from St. Nicholas)
- Ebenezer (Wikipedia: A Christmas Carol)
- Charles Dickens (Wikipedia: A Christmas Carol)
- Jacob Marley (Wikipedia: A Christmas Carol)
- 1843 (Wikipedia: A Christmas Carol)
- Tiny Tim (Wikipedia: A Christmas Carol)
- Three (Wikipedia: A Christmas Carol)
- Red (Wikipedia: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)
- Montgomery Ward (Wikipedia: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)
- Gene Autry (Wikipedia: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (song))
- "The One Horse Open Sleigh" (Wikipedia: Jingle Bells)
- Gemini 6 (Gemini VI) (Wikipedia: Jingle Bells)
- Austria (in Oberndorf, near Salzburg) (Wikipedia: Silent Night)
- German ("Stille Nacht") (Wikipedia: Silent Night)
- Irving Berlin (Wikipedia: White Christmas (song))
- José Feliciano (Wikipedia: Feliz Navidad (song))
- Mexico (Wikipedia: Poinsettia)
- He was the first United States minister to Mexico (Wikipedia: Poinsettia)
- The Nutcracker (Wikipedia: The Nutcracker)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Wikipedia: The Nutcracker)
- Saint Petersburg, Russia (Wikipedia: The Nutcracker)
- Three (Wikipedia: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!)
- Max (Wikipedia: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!)
- Whoville (Wikipedia: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!)
- Myra (now Demre, in Turkey) (Wikipedia: Saint Nicholas)
- Clarence (Clarence Odbody) (Wikipedia: It's a Wonderful Life)
- Bedford Falls (Wikipedia: It's a Wonderful Life)
- A log (it is also called a yule log cake) (Wikipedia: Yule log (cake))
- Rockefeller Center (Wikipedia: Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree)
Answers checked 2 October 2026. tallyandtable.com/christmas-games/trivia
How we checked every answer
It is easy to write a trivia question with two fair answers, or to repeat an answer nobody can back up. Ours follow three rules:
- The source must say it. Each answer was checked on 2 October 2026 against the page linked beside it, and that page states the answer. All the sources are Wikipedia articles, which you can open and check.
- One fair answer only. We dropped questions where reasonable people disagree (which country started the Christmas tree, who really wrote the St. Nicholas poem) and questions about record-breaking sales that change every year.
- If we could not confirm it, it is not here. A few good questions were cut because no page we could open stated the answer.
Spot something wrong? Use the suggestion box at the bottom of the page and we will check it again.
More for the party: Christmas games with printable bingo cards, a left-right gift story and a charades deck, and White Elephant rules with a steal tracker.
Christmas trivia questions about this page
How were these Christmas trivia answers checked?
Each answer was checked on 2 October 2026 against the page named next to it, and that page had to state the answer itself. Questions we could not confirm that way were dropped, as were questions with more than one fair answer (like which country had the first Christmas tree).
Are these Christmas trivia questions good for kids?
Yes. The 10 easy questions are about songs, stories and characters most children know. Turn off Medium and Hard in the quiz to play only those.
How do you run a Christmas trivia game for a group?
Split into teams of three to five, read ten questions per round, and let teams write answers on paper. Swap sheets to mark them, read the answers from the printed key, and keep score with the team counter on this page.