Christmas Day is here, and alongside the presents and roast dinner, it's the perfect time to settle in for a classic festive quiz. We've compiled the ultimate challenge to test your knowledge of all things Yuletide, from obscure facts about holiday plants to the artists behind iconic Christmas chart-toppers.
A Festive Feast of General Knowledge
Our quiz kicks off with a robust selection of general knowledge questions designed to stretch even the most ardent trivia enthusiast. How well do you know your Christmas flora and fauna? For instance, can you name the popular but hemi-parasitic Christmas plant? Delve into royal history by identifying which monarch gave the first televised Christmas Broadcast in the UK and in which year.
The classic carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" presents a mathematical puzzle: how many rings are given in total across the song's duration? Meanwhile, foodies can try to recall the name of the traditional German spiced biscuit enjoyed during the season. Music fans are challenged to name the singer who spent a record-breaking 7 weeks at UK Number 1 with "All I Want for Christmas Is You" in 2020 and 2022.
Film buffs aren't left out, with questions on the conductor in The Polar Express and the actor who portrayed the iconic villain Hans Gruber in the 1988 film Die Hard. Can you identify the classic Christmas song featuring the line "Everybody's waiting for the man with the bag" or the real-life department store that inspired Miracle on 34th Street? We even probe the origins of eggnog.
Decipher the Cryptic Carols
The second round shifts gears to cryptic clues, where common Christmas phrases and carol titles are cleverly disguised. Can you decode what is meant by "No noise between 8.00pm and 6.00am" or "Small equus africanus asinus"? These brain-teasers require you to think laterally, summoning the essence of beloved festive tunes from their puzzling descriptions.
Other clues include "Summon the entirety of believers," "It arrived at 12.00 on a transparent day," and "Observe through the seasonal precipitation." One clue references the sounds from a steeple and asks, "Was the earliest Edmonds or Gallagher?" while another mentions "Miss Willoughby together with the Hedera genus." The round concludes with the enigmatic "One perceived with eyes a trio of vessels as ovine attendants looked over their charges in the hours of darkness."
Name the Festive Number One Artists
No Christmas quiz would be complete without a music round. This section tests your recall of the artists and groups who have topped the UK charts during the festive season across the decades. The challenge is to name the performer for each given year and song title.
The list spans from 1957's "Mary's Boy Child" through to 2009's "Killing The Name", taking in iconic tracks like 1973's "Merry Christmas Everybody" and 1974's "Lonely This Christmas". Can you remember who had a hit with "Moon River" in 1961, "Green Green Grass of Home" in 1966, or "Save Your Love" in 1982? This is the ultimate test of your pop music heritage.
For those who tackled yesterday's quiz, the answers for December 25th are also provided. They revealed that the two father-son duos to win the F1 World Championship are the Hills (Damon & Graham) and the Rosbergs (Keke & Nico). In meteorology, "Gelid" means very cold or frosty, and the theme for "Ready, Steady, Go" was "5-4-3-2-1" by Manfred Mann. The first British-born Nobel winner was Sir William Cremer for Peace in 1903, and Death's horse in Discworld is called Binky.
Other answers included the shipping area Malin, the planet Jupiter having the moon Callisto, and the novel Jane Eyre opening with the line about no walk that day. Nobel prizes are awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Medicine, Peace, and Economics, and Castle Howard was the setting for Brideshead Revisited.
