Family Christmas quiz: 28 questions for all ages

A family Christmas quiz has to do something a pub quiz never does: keep a seven-year-old and a seventy-year-old in the same game. That's harder than it sounds, because most festive question sets are pitched squarely at adults who've watched a lot of television.

The approach that works is grading the questions rather than averaging them. Instead of making everything medium, you write some questions that the youngest players will get and some that only the adults will, then make sure both kinds are worth the same point. These 28 questions are laid out that way, in three sections you can deal out according to who's in the room.

Round one: for the youngest players

1What colour is Rudolph's nose?

Answer:Red(click to reveal)

2What do people traditionally leave out for Father Christmas on Christmas Eve?

Answer:A mince pie and a drink (carrots for the reindeer also accepted)(click to reveal)

3What is the name of the snowman in Disney's Frozen?

Answer:Olaf(click to reveal)

4Which plant, hung in a doorway, is traditionally a signal for a kiss?

Answer:Mistletoe(click to reveal)

5In the song, how many days of Christmas are there?

Answer:Twelve(click to reveal)

6What do you traditionally pull at the table, which makes a bang and contains a paper hat?

Answer:A cracker(click to reveal)

7What is the name of the day after Christmas Day in the UK?

Answer:Boxing Day(click to reveal)

8What vegetable, often described as the most hated part of Christmas dinner, is a small green ball?

Answer:A Brussels sprout(click to reveal)

9What goes on the very top of a Christmas tree?

Answer:A star or an angel(click to reveal)

10In The Snowman, what does the boy build before it comes to life?

Answer:A snowman(click to reveal)

Round two: for everyone

11Which royal consort is usually credited with popularising the Christmas tree in Britain, after an illustration of his family around one appeared in 1848?

Answer:Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. The trees weren't unknown in Britain before that, but the picture made them fashionable.(click to reveal)

12Rudolph was invented in 1939 as part of a promotion for an American department store, rather than appearing in any traditional story. Who were the eight reindeer named in the 1823 poem that came before him?

Answer:Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen(click to reveal)

13Which London confectioner is credited with inventing the Christmas cracker in the 1840s?

Answer:Tom Smith(click to reveal)

14In which country is it a widespread modern tradition to eat fried chicken from a fast food chain on Christmas Day?

Answer:Japan(click to reveal)

15Which three gifts do the wise men bring in the nativity story?

Answer:Gold, frankincense and myrrh(click to reveal)

16In which town is Jesus born, according to that story?

Answer:Bethlehem(click to reveal)

17What is the name of the Italian figure, often described as a kindly witch, who brings gifts to children on the eve of Epiphany in early January?

Answer:La Befana(click to reveal)

18Which country gives the enormous Christmas tree that stands in London's Trafalgar Square each year?

Answer:Norway, as an annual thank-you for British support during the Second World War.(click to reveal)

19What were mince pies originally filled with, as the name suggests?

Answer:Meat. The sweet, fruit-only version came much later, though the spices are a leftover from the original recipe.(click to reveal)

20On which date is Twelfth Night, by which tradition says decorations should come down?

Answer:5 or 6 January, depending on whether you count from Christmas Day or Boxing Day. Both are widely used.(click to reveal)

Round three: for the adults

21Saint Nicholas, the figure Father Christmas is loosely based on, was a bishop in a city in what is now which country?

Answer:Turkey (Myra, in modern-day Antalya Province)(click to reveal)

22In Catalonia, families keep a decorated log in the house in December and then hit it with sticks on Christmas Eve. What is it supposed to do?

Answer:Produce presents. It's called the Tió de Nadal, and children feed it in the weeks beforehand.(click to reveal)

23In Iceland, a flood of new book releases in the run-up to Christmas leads to a tradition of giving books on Christmas Eve and reading them that night. What is it called?

Answer:Jólabókaflóð, which translates roughly as the Christmas book flood.(click to reveal)

24How many Yule Lads are there in Icelandic folklore, each arriving on a different night in the run-up to Christmas?

Answer:Thirteen(click to reveal)

25The abbreviation "Xmas" is often criticised as a modern shortening that takes Christ out of Christmas. What does the X actually represent?

Answer:The Greek letter chi, the first letter of Christ in Greek. The abbreviation goes back centuries.(click to reveal)

26Which Swedish city builds an enormous straw goat every Advent, which has repeatedly been burned down by vandals?

Answer:Gävle(click to reveal)

27The Bible does not actually state how many wise men there were. Why are they traditionally said to number three?

Answer:Because three gifts are listed. The number of visitors is never given.(click to reveal)

28Which flower, now a standard Christmas decoration, is native to Mexico and was introduced to the United States by a diplomat whose surname it carries?

Answer:The poinsettia, after Joel Roberts Poinsett.(click to reveal)

Running it so nobody feels left out

Deal the rounds by table, not by difficulty order. If you've got children in the room, give them round one as their own round rather than making them sit through twenty questions they can't answer first. Mixed teams work even better: put one child on each team and make round one the part where they carry the adults.

Score every round the same. The temptation is to make the hard questions worth more, which immediately tells the youngest players their round doesn't count.

Have a tiebreaker ready. "How many gifts are given in total across the twelve days?" is the classic, and the answer is 364. Closest guess wins.

Read the room on the religious questions. Round three includes a couple on the nativity and on Saint Nicholas, which are fine for most families and worth swapping out for others if yours would rather skip them.

If you want more festive material, there's a film round in our Christmas film quiz questions, a music round in our Christmas music quiz questions, and 14 formats for building a whole night in our Christmas quiz round ideas. For something to do between rounds, try our Christmas party games. The quiz creator will turn any of it into slides and answer sheets.