Hard Christmas Trivia

Hard Christmas Trivia

1. 1.In what year did the US declare Christmas a federal holiday?hard

   Answer: 1870

2. 2.Which US president banned Christmas trees from the White House?hard

   Answer: Theodore Roosevelt (for conservation)

3. 3.What was the original colour of Santa in early illustrations by Thomas Nast?hard

   Answer: Tan / brown fur

4. 4.In which country did the first artificial Christmas trees appear?hard

   Answer: Germany (dyed goose feathers)

5. 5.Which ruler banned Christmas in England in the 1640s-50s?hard

   Answer: Oliver Cromwell's Puritan government

6. 6.What was Rudolph's original name considered by Robert May?hard

   Answer: Rollo or Reginald

7. 7.Which department store created Rudolph in 1939?hard

   Answer: Montgomery Ward

8. 8.What is the 'Feast of Stephen' date?medium

   Answer: December 26

9. 9.In which year was the first Christmas card sent?hard

   Answer: 1843

10. 10.Who commissioned the first commercial Christmas card?hard

    Answer: Sir Henry Cole

11. 11.What is the fear of Santa Claus called?hard

    Answer: Santaclausophobia

12. 12.What is the name of the tradition of hiding a pickle in the tree?medium

    Answer: The Christmas pickle (Weihnachtsgurke)

13. 13.Total gifts given across all Twelve Days of Christmas?hard

    Answer: 364

14. 14.Which 1914 event saw soldiers stop fighting on Christmas?medium

    Answer: The Christmas Truce (WWI)

15. 15.How many points does a traditional snowflake have?medium

    Answer: Six

16. 16.Which country first issued a Christmas postage stamp in 1898?hard

    Answer: Canada

17. 17.In what year did Coca-Cola first use Haddon Sundblom's Santa in ads?hard

    Answer: 1931

18. 18.What is the name of Santa's ninth reindeer added in 1939?medium

    Answer: Rudolph

19. 19.Which composer wrote 'A Ceremony of Carols'?hard

    Answer: Benjamin Britten

20. 20.In what year was 'Silent Night' first performed?hard

    Answer: 1818

21. 21.Who wrote the lyrics to 'Silent Night'?hard

    Answer: Joseph Mohr

22. 22.Who composed the melody of 'Silent Night'?hard

    Answer: Franz Xaver Gruber

23. 23.Which US state has a town called Santa Claus?hard

    Answer: Indiana

24. 24.What is the tallest Christmas tree ever cut (Seattle, 1950)?hard

    Answer: About 221 feet (67 m) Douglas fir

25. 25.In what year did the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree tradition begin?hard

    Answer: 1931

26. 26.Which British monarch began the Royal Christmas broadcast in 1932?hard

    Answer: King George V

27. 27.What year was the first Royal Christmas message televised?hard

    Answer: 1957

28. 28.What was the first-ever Christmas film made (1898)?hard

    Answer: Santa Claus (by George Albert Smith)

29. 29.What is the Latin name of the holly plant?hard

    Answer: Ilex

30. 30.What are the red 'petals' of a poinsettia actually?hard

    Answer: Bracts (modified leaves), not petals

31. 31.In Charles Dickens's novel, how many staves does A Christmas Carol have?hard

    Answer: Five

32. 32.What is the name of the largest Christmas market in Germany often cited as oldest?hard

    Answer: Dresden Striezelmarkt (1434)

33. 33.How many gifts in total does the singer receive on the 12th day alone?hard

    Answer: 78

34. 34.Which space station crew decorated for Christmas in 1973?hard

    Answer: Skylab 4

35. 35.Which US president's family lit the first National Christmas Tree in 1923?hard

    Answer: Calvin Coolidge

36. 36.What is the name of the reindeer subspecies native to Svalbard?hard

    Answer: Svalbard reindeer

37. 37.Which country's KFC Christmas tradition began from a 1974 campaign?medium

    Answer: Japan

38. 38.What is the 'Twelfth Day of Christmas' date?hard

    Answer: January 5 (or 6, depending on count)

39. 39.What is the chemical compound in mistletoe that's toxic?hard

    Answer: Viscotoxins (phoratoxins)

40. 40.Which country produces the most Christmas trees in Europe?hard

    Answer: Germany (also Denmark leads exports)

41. 41.Which country exports the most Christmas trees in Europe?hard

    Answer: Denmark

42. 42.What is the most popular species of Christmas tree in Europe?hard

    Answer: Nordmann fir

43. 43.What is the oldest known Christmas carol (4th century)?hard

    Answer: Jesus refulsit omnium

44. 44.Who wrote the hymn 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'?hard

    Answer: Charles Wesley

45. 45.Who adapted 'Hark! The Herald' music from a Mendelssohn cantata?hard

    Answer: William H. Cummings

46. 46.In which year was Rudolph's song by Johnny Marks published?hard

    Answer: 1949

47. 47.What was the name of the 1964 stop-motion Rudolph studio?hard

    Answer: Rankin/Bass

48. 48.What is the 'Island of Misfit Toys' from?medium

    Answer: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

49. 49.Which US state was last to make Christmas a legal holiday (1907)?hard

    Answer: Oklahoma

50. 50.In which year did NORAD start tracking Santa?hard

    Answer: 1955

51. 51.What caused NORAD's Santa tracking to start?hard

    Answer: A misprinted phone number in a Sears ad

52. 52.What is the name of the CONAD/NORAD colonel who answered the call?hard

    Answer: Colonel Harry Shoup

53. 53.What is the name of the Christmas Island's country?hard

    Answer: Australia (Indian Ocean territory)

54. 54.Who named Christmas Island in 1643?hard

    Answer: Captain William Mynors

55. 55.What is the alternative name of Kiritimati?hard

    Answer: Christmas Island (Pacific, Kiribati)

56. 56.What is the 'Kissing bough'?hard

    Answer: An old English hanging decoration of greenery

57. 57.What year did 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' first air?hard

    Answer: 1965

58. 58.What Bible passage does Linus recite in A Charlie Brown Christmas?hard

    Answer: Luke 2:8–14

59. 59.What type of tree does Charlie Brown choose?medium

    Answer: A small, sparse real tree

60. 60.Which Christmas classic was written by Leroy Anderson in 1948?hard

    Answer: Sleigh Ride

61. 61.How many lights are on the Rockefeller Center tree, approximately?hard

    Answer: About 50,000

62. 62.What crowns the Rockefeller tree since 2018?hard

    Answer: A Swarovski star

63. 63.What is the longest-running Christmas TV special?hard

    Answer: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

64. 64.What is the name of Santa's reindeer in Rudolph that becomes his father?hard

    Answer: Donner

65. 65.Which country has the Christmas tradition 'Lucia' singing in white gowns?medium

    Answer: Sweden

66. 66.What crown does St. Lucia wear?medium

    Answer: A wreath of candles

67. 67.What was Saint Nicholas the bishop of?medium

    Answer: Myra

68. 68.Where are St. Nicholas's relics mostly kept?hard

    Answer: Bari, Italy

69. 69.In what year were St. Nicholas's relics moved to Bari?hard

    Answer: 1087

70. 70.Which Christmas poem's authorship is disputed by Henry Livingston Jr.'s family?hard

    Answer: A Visit from St. Nicholas

71. 71.How many times does the word 'Christmas' appear in the Bible?medium

    Answer: Zero

72. 72.What year was the first Christmas tree at the White House officially lit?hard

    Answer: 1889

73. 73.Which tree do Americans choose most often?hard

    Answer: Fraser fir (and Douglas fir)

74. 74.How long does a Christmas tree take to grow to sale height on average?medium

    Answer: About 7–10 years

75. 75.What is the world's largest Christmas light display record holder known as?hard

    Answer: Over 600,000 lights on one home (Gay family, NY)

76. 76.What is the 'boar's head' tradition?hard

    Answer: Medieval English Christmas feast of a boar's head

77. 77.Which Oxford college holds a Boar's Head Feast?hard

    Answer: The Queen's College

78. 78.What did England's Puritan Parliament ban in 1647?medium

    Answer: Christmas itself (1647)

79. 79.Who restored Christmas legally in England in 1660?hard

    Answer: King Charles II (the Restoration)

80. 80.What was the 'Lord of Misrule'?hard

    Answer: An official appointed to oversee Christmas revelry

81. 81.What is the 'Feast of Fools'?hard

    Answer: A medieval topsy-turvy celebration around New Year

82. 82.Which Christmas plant was sacred to the Romans' Saturnalia?hard

    Answer: Holly

83. 83.What is the name of the Gävle Goat's tradition started year?hard

    Answer: 1966

84. 84.What is the largest Christmas tree ever displayed (artificial, record)?hard

    Answer: Around 55 m tall (Brazil/China claims)

85. 85.Which country hosts the 'Night of the Radishes' on December 23?hard

    Answer: Mexico (Oaxaca)

86. 86.What is carved on the Night of the Radishes?hard

    Answer: Radishes into Nativity and folk scenes

87. 87.What do Ukrainians call the 12-dish Christmas Eve supper?hard

    Answer: Sviata Vecheria (Holy Supper)

88. 88.What is the 'Spirit of Christmas Present' holding in Dickens?hard

    Answer: A glowing torch like Plenty's horn

89. 89.What is the German word for the Christmas Eve 'Holy Evening'?medium

    Answer: Heiligabend

90. 90.Which composer wrote 'Christmas Oratorio' (1734)?hard

    Answer: Johann Sebastian Bach

91. 91.How many parts are in Bach's Christmas Oratorio?hard

    Answer: Six

92. 92.Which country first used electric lights on public Christmas trees in 1907?hard

    Answer: USA (New York, Madison Square)

93. 93.What year did the first Rockefeller tree get lights?hard

    Answer: 1933

94. 94.What is the 'Kalėdų eglutė'?medium

    Answer: The Lithuanian Christmas tree

95. 95.What is the traditional Lithuanian straw ornament called?hard

    Answer: Šiaudinukai

96. 96.In which city is the oldest documented public Christmas tree (1510)?hard

    Answer: Riga, Latvia (claimed; also Tallinn 1441)

97. 97.Which city claims the first public Christmas tree in 1441?hard

    Answer: Tallinn, Estonia

98. 98.What is the 'Wren Day' in Ireland?hard

    Answer: December 26 hunt/parade with a fake wren

99. 99.What was the 'Christmas Island' of the Indian Ocean known for in red?hard

    Answer: Red crab migration

100. 100.How many species of reindeer exist?hard

     Answer: One (Rangifer tarandus)