The Very Merry Christmas Quiz

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS QUIZ

ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD, former researcher from ‘QI’ and author of The Meaning of Tingo, poses 40 festive questions.

1) In which year was the first Christmas card printed in England? Was it 1863, 1883 or 1843?

2) Who introduced Christmas Carols to formal church services?

3) Which foreign city gives the city of Westminster a Christmas tree every year to adorn Trafalgar

Square?

4) The story of Babushka is famous in a traditional Russian Christmas.

What does the name translate as?

5) What do red berries represent at Christmas?

6) In which country did the original custom of children placing wooden shoes next to the hearth the night before the arrival of St. Nicholas before they became the now familiar Christmas stocking?

7) In which country did baubles, the ornamental balls on a Christmas tree, originate?

8) Why was Christmas Day

The Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree Humphrey Bogart

particularly special to Humphrey Bogart, Sir Isaac Newton and Princess Alexandra?

9) In the Scottish dialect what is a yule-hole?

10) With the recent addition of Rudolph, how many reindeer does Santa have … 8, 9 or 10?

11) Which British monarch changed the customary Christmas fare of the goose into the turkey? 12) At what time on British television on Christmas Day is the Queen’s Christmas Message first broadcast? 13) In which Mediterranean country on New Year’s Eve do you collect at each party

a ‘cotillon’, a kind of party bag containing sweets and whistles?

14) What is the biggest selling Christmas single of all time?

15) In which decade was the Queen’s first speech broadcast on television?

16) In which South Pacific country is your age measured not in years but by how many Christmases you've

lived through? 17) What does the word ‘hederated’ mean?

18) In which country do some priests advise you to say "Happy Christmas", not "Merry Christmas", because Merry has connotations of getting drunk?

19) Who was the first to add lighted candles to the Christmas tree? 20) Why was Christmas Day particularly special to WC Fields, Charlie Chaplin and Joan Miro?

21) In which country is ‘kiviak’ a gastronomical Christmas treat made from the raw flesh of an auk buried under a stone in sealskin for several months until it's achieved an advanced stage of decomposition?

22) Hanging gifts on trees is supposed to stem from what?

23) In which Mediterranean country does the 'consoada' feast take place at midnight on Christmas Eve?

24) Why at a traditional Bulgarian Christmas does the family not get together around the table but instead choose to sit on the floor?

25) In 1861 Tom Smith launched a new range of what he called 'Bangs of Expectation'. What were they?

26) Originally a fertility rite with live animals, what Wiltshire Christmas custom later degenerated into singing in the streets and collecting money in a bowl?

27) What kind of plays were performed historically in Wiltshire at Christmas in the evenings in the big houses and farmhouses?

28) Why is Xmas the common abbreviation for Christmas?

29) Who banned Christmas Carols in the 17th century, thinking that Christmas should be a very solemn day and so the only celebration was by a sermon and a prayer service?

30) Who in America tried to make Thanksgiving Day the most important annual festival instead of Christmas?

31) Why is 26 December known as Boxing Day?

32) The first printed reference to what Christmas feature appeared in Germany in 1531?

33) Who was a busy man who wanted to save time in his own Christmas letters, but was also interested in encouraging the expansion of the postal system

Charlie Chaplin

and thereby printed the first Christmas card?

34) In which famous truce that lasted a few days did men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings, sang carols and songs and even played a game of soccer?

35) Who brought the first Christmas tree to Windsor Castle for the Royal family in 1834?

36) Where do they call the poinsettia "Flower of the Holy Night" - the Holy Night being

ANSWERS 1) 1843 2) St. Francis of Assisi 3) Oslo 4) Grandmother 5) the drops of Christ's blood 6) Holland 7) Germany 8) It was their birthday 9) The last hole to which a man could stretch his belt at a Christmas feast 10) 9 11) King Henry VIII 12) 3pm 13) Spain 14) Bing Crosby's White Christmas 15) The Fifties (1957) 16) Papua New Guinea 17) Adorned with ivy 18) Australia 19) Martin Luther 20) It was the day they died 21) Greenland 22) Tree worship of the Druids 23) Portugal 24) Because during the Secret Dinner Jesus and the apostles also sat on the floor 25) Christmas Crackers 26) Wassail 27) Mummers’ plays 28) It is derived from the Greek alphabet. X is letter Chi, which is the first letter of Christ's name in the Greek alphabet 29) Oliver Cromwell 30) The Puritans 31) Because money was collected in alms-boxes placed in churches during the festive season which was then distributed to the poor and needy after Christmas 32) A Christmas tree 33) Sir Henry Cole 34) World War One, at midnight on Christmas Eve 1914 35) Prince Albert 36) In Mexico 37) President Franklin Pierce 38) Tom Smith 39) Some of Santa’s reindeer 40) Rome their way of saying "Christmas Eve"?

37) Which President decorated the first White House Christmas tree in 1856?

38) Which sweet shop owner was the creator of the first Christmas cracker?

39) Who are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen?

40) The first Christmas is said to have taken place in 336AD in which city?

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