50 Fun Facts About British Christmas

Which bird stars on British Christmas cards, perhaps because red-coated Victorian postmen shared its name as a nickname?

Robin is said to have been the nickname of Victorian postmen in their bright red jackets, so card artists drew the bird itself delivering the mail.

Which country has sent London's Trafalgar Square a Christmas tree every year since 1947 as thanks for wartime support?

Norway fells the spruce each November at a ceremony attended by the British ambassador and the Mayor of Oslo. The chosen tree is usually 50 to 60 years old and over 20 metres tall.

Which Rage Against the Machine track was 2009's UK Christmas number one after a Facebook protest against The X Factor?

Killing in the Name outsold the talent show winner's single after DJ Jon Morter and his wife Tracy urged Facebook users to buy it, ending a four-year run of X Factor Christmas chart-toppers.

Which strict Protestant group led the English Parliament that banned the celebration of Christmas in 1647?

Puritans replaced the feast with a day of fasting, condemning Christmas as a popish festival with no biblical justification and a time of wasteful behaviour.

Which Christmas bake, now filled with dried fruit and spices, was originally made with meat such as mutton?

Mince pie fillings once included beef, mutton, tripe and even fish alongside the fruit, and recipes only gradually stopped calling for meat.

Which coin, also slipped into a bride's shoe for luck, was traditionally hidden in a British Christmas pudding?

Sixpence pieces took over from the vanishing silver threepence as the pudding coin, and whoever found one in their slice was promised good luck for the coming year.

In which Christmas pantomime is the dame Widow Twankey, a character named after a cheap grade of Chinese tea?

Aladdin's mother got the name in an 1861 play by H. J. Byron, after Twankay, a green tea whose old, ragged leaves hinted that she was past her best.

By the Met Office definition, what must happen on 25 December for the UK to record an official white Christmas?

One snowflake seen falling anywhere in the UK during the 24 hours is enough, even mixed with rain, while deep snow already lying from an earlier fall does not count.

At which Norfolk estate, bought for the future Edward VII, does the royal family traditionally gather for Christmas?

Sandringham Christmases were a tradition Queen Elizabeth II inherited from her father and grandfather, whereas Queen Victoria had held her celebrations at Windsor Castle.

Which tin of toffees and chocolates, a British Christmas staple, was launched by Mackintosh's of Halifax in 1936?

Quality Street was Harold Mackintosh's bid to make boxed chocolates cheap enough for working-class families to buy, built on the toffee his parents had sold from their Halifax shop.

Which supergroup, assembled by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, topped the UK chart at Christmas 1984 for famine relief?

Band Aid sold a million copies in a single week, making its record the fastest-selling single in UK chart history until Elton John's Candle in the Wind 1997.

Which Wolverhampton glam rock group beat Wizzard to the 1973 UK Christmas number one with Merry Xmas Everybody?

Slade recorded the festive hit in the late summer of 1973 at a New York studio, partway through a US tour, and it has been re-released in every decade since.

Which girl group matched the Beatles' then-record of three consecutive UK Christmas number ones between 1996 and 1998?

Spice Girls member Melanie C went one better in 2012, collecting a fourth Christmas chart-topper as part of the Justice Collective charity single.

Which Queen single was UK Christmas number one in 1975 and again in 1991 after Freddie Mercury's death?

Bohemian Rhapsody returned as a double A-side with These Are the Days of Our Lives and spent five more weeks at the top, helping make it the UK's third best-selling single.

Which royal, pictured beside a Windsor Castle tree in an 1848 magazine, made Christmas trees fashionable in Britain?

Prince Albert got the credit after the Illustrated London News cover, although the German-born Queen Charlotte had put up a tree at a children's party back in 1800.

Which novelist's 1843 ghost story about a miser sold out its first edition by Christmas Eve, days after publication?

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks, finishing the final pages in early December, and thirteen editions had been released by the end of 1844.

Which sport did British and German soldiers reportedly play in no man's land during the Christmas truce of 1914?

Football features in many accounts of the truce, including a letter printed in The Times on 1 January 1915, though some kick-abouts made do with a bully-beef tin for a ball.

Which king was crowned at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066, weeks after his victory at the Battle of Hastings?

William I, the Conqueror, marked another Christmas Day three years later by symbolically wearing his crown in the ruins of York.

Which English scientist was born at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire on Christmas Day 1642, by the old calendar?

Isaac Newton's Christmas birthday depends on the calendar: England still used the Julian one, and by the Gregorian count now in use he was born on 4 January 1643.

In the British Christmas side dish pigs in blankets, small chipolata sausages are wrapped in what?

Bacon-wrapped chipolatas, also nicknamed kilted sausages, topped a 2019 Tesco survey as the side dish most shoppers planned to serve with their Christmas dinner.

What nickname, taken from a Book of Common Prayer collect, marks the day Britons traditionally make Christmas pudding?

Stir-up Sunday is the last one before Advent, and the prayer read in church that day made a handy reminder, since a pudding has to be cooked well ahead and reheated on Christmas Day.

Which spirit is traditionally warmed, poured over a British Christmas pudding and set alight before serving?

Brandy turns up twice at the table, because the flaming pudding is often eaten with a hard sauce known as brandy butter, though custard and cream are common alternatives.

Which bird remained the main Christmas roast in England until turkey overtook it during the Victorian era?

Goose was the common choice for centuries, while wealthy households of the 16th and 17th centuries sometimes dined on peacock and swan instead.

Which milk-based British side dish, a survivor of medieval cookery, is traditionally served with the Christmas turkey?

Bread sauce is thickened with breadcrumbs, the way cooks of the Middle Ages thickened most sauces, and takes its flavour from onion, clove, bay leaf and nutmeg.

Which Nobel Prize-winning author scripted the first royal Christmas message, read on the radio in 1932?

Rudyard Kipling wrote the words for George V, who had been hesitant about the untested medium of radio until a summer visit to the BBC reassured him.

Which British broadcaster has aired an Alternative Christmas Message since 1993, when Quentin Crisp gave the first?

Channel 4 started the tradition by accident: it was running a season of programmes on Christmas in New York and invited Crisp to give a rival to the monarch's address.

Which wordless 1982 animated film, based on a Raymond Briggs picture book, features the song Walking in the Air?

The Snowman was an immediate success when it first aired on 26 December 1982, and the song is the only break in a film that otherwise has no dialogue at all.

Which soap's 1986 Christmas Day episode drew more than 30 million viewers, the largest audience in its history?

EastEnders set the record when landlord Den Watts took revenge on his wife Angie, who had lied about having six months to live, by handing her divorce papers.

Which comedy double act left the BBC for Thames Television straight after their hugely watched 1977 Christmas show?

Morecambe and Wise took the Christmas special so seriously that in some years they made no series at all, so that writer, producer and stars could concentrate on it.

Which actor plays the British Prime Minister in Richard Curtis's 2003 Christmas romantic comedy Love Actually?

Hugh Grant disliked filming his character's dance scene, calling it excruciating, and Curtis had first conceived the storyline as a separate film of its own.

In which country of the British Isles did Christmas Day only become a public holiday in 1958?

Scotland had abolished the Yule holiday by act of parliament in 1640, and for three centuries most Scots treated 25 December as an ordinary working day. Boxing Day only followed in 1974.

In the Welsh Christmas custom of the Mari Lwyd, which animal's skull is carried on a pole beneath a white sheet?

Horse skulls dressed with ribbons made the Mari Lwyd, and the party of men who took it round the neighbourhood often included stock characters such as Punch and Judy.

Which 1853 carol by John Mason Neale follows a tenth-century ruler taking alms to a peasant on the Feast of Stephen?

Good King Wenceslas promotes its hero, since the real Wenceslaus was only a duke in his lifetime, and Neale fitted the words to a 13th-century spring carol from a Finnish songbook.

By which date in the Christmas calendar does English superstition say decorations must come down to avoid bad luck?

Twelfth Night only took on the role in later centuries, because in medieval and Tudor England the Christmas season ran all the way to Candlemas on 2 February.

Which Cambridge chapel's choir has sung the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols every Christmas Eve since 1918?

King's College did not invent the service, which began at Truro Cathedral in 1880, but BBC radio broadcasts from 1928 made its version the best known of all.

Which English poet wrote In the Bleak Midwinter, later set to music as a carol by Gustav Holst and Harold Darke?

Christina Rossetti's verses won over the experts: Darke's 1909 setting for trained choirs was named the best Christmas carol in a 2008 poll of leading choirmasters.

Which fruit holds the candle in a Christingle, the red-ribboned symbol of British children's Christmas services?

Orange stands for the world and the candle for light, yet the first Christingle, made in Germany in 1747, was just a candle wrapped in ribbon, and nobody knows how the fruit joined it.

Which YouTube act scored five straight UK Christmas number ones from 2018 to 2022 with sausage roll novelty songs?

LadBaby raised money for the Trussell Trust every time and passed the Beatles' tally of Christmas chart-toppers in 2022, then chose not to release a single the following year.

Which pioneer of electromagnetism gave the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures nineteen times in the 19th century?

Michael Faraday remains the most famous lecturer in a series aimed at young people, which has run every year since 1825 apart from four years during the Second World War.

Which children's book character gives his name to the cup raced for in London's Serpentine lake every Christmas morning?

Peter Pan creator J. M. Barrie presented the cup himself, for a 100-yard race that the Serpentine Swimming Club has organised every Christmas morning since 1864.

Which London confectioner is credited with inventing the Christmas cracker in 1847 as a twist on his bon-bon sweets?

Tom Smith is said to have added the snap after hearing a log crackle on his fire, and his son Walter later brought in the hats and gifts to see off rival makers.

Which civil servant, who had helped introduce the Penny Post, commissioned the first commercial Christmas card in 1843?

Henry Cole's card, drawn by John Callcott Horsley, showed a family drinking wine together, which allegedly proved controversial; one of the originals sold for nearly £9,000 in 2005.

Which English racecourse is home to the King George VI Chase, a Boxing Day fixture since racing resumed there in 1947?

Kempton Park spent the Second World War as a prisoner-of-war camp, and its big race has since been won four times by Desert Orchid and five times by Kauto Star.

Which carol, its first verse sung by a solo boy chorister, has opened Cambridge's Nine Lessons and Carols since 1919?

Once in Royal David's City keeps its soloist in suspense: by the choir's tradition he is usually chosen just before the performance, when the choirmaster decides whose voice is strongest on the day.

Which postcode does Royal Mail give for children's letters addressed to Santa's Grotto, Reindeerland?

XM4 5HQ reads like 'Xmas HQ', and Royal Mail recommends writing the address in full to Santa or Father Christmas at his grotto.

In Yorkshire, Christmas cake is usually left un-iced and eaten with a slice of which cheese?

Wensleydale goes with fruit cake of every kind in Yorkshire, whereas elsewhere a Christmas cake is usually covered in layers of marzipan and then icing.

Which Pet Shop Boys single kept Fairytale of New York at number two in the UK Christmas chart of 1987?

Always on My Mind took the top spot, yet the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl duet it held off went on to re-enter the UK Top 20 more than twenty times.

Which Cornish dish, eaten in Mousehole on Tom Bawcock's Eve, has pilchard heads poking up through its pastry crust?

Stargazy pie honours a fisherman said to have braved the storms on 23 December and landed a catch big enough to save the starving village, all of it baked into one huge dish.

Which word for a hot spiced cider punch also names the English custom of singing to orchard trees for a good harvest?

Wassail began as a salutation meaning 'be in good health', and its other form, going door to door with a bowl of the drink, has largely been displaced by carol singing.

Which coronation relic did four Glasgow students remove from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950?

The Stone of Scone crashed to the floor and broke in two as it was pulled from under the Coronation Chair, and it resurfaced in April 1951 at the high altar of Arbroath Abbey.