90 Fun Facts About Catholic Christmas

What is the usual liturgical colour for Advent in the Western Church?

Violet: Pope Innocent III once named black as Advent's colour, but violet had taken over by the end of the 13th century.

On which Sunday of Advent may rose vestments be worn and the rose candle lit?

The third: rose is worn then to signal that Christmas is now near.

What does 'Gaudete', the Latin name of a Sunday in Advent, mean?

It is the first word of that day's introit, from Philippians: 'Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.'

Advent was once also called a 'Lent' named after which saint, whose feast falls on 11 November?

Martin of Tours: the fast began the day after his feast, which is why this season of preparing for Christmas was nicknamed St Martin's Lent.

The Advent wreath, common in Catholic homes, began as a tradition in which denomination?

Lutheran: pastor Johann Hinrich Wichern is credited with the modern wreath, made in 1839 for mission children in Hamburg who kept asking when Christmas would come.

The O Antiphons, sung at Vespers from 17 to 23 December, are best known in English as which hymn?

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is John Mason Neale's 1851 English rendering of the Latin hymn Veni, veni, Emmanuel, which paraphrases the seven antiphons from O Sapientia to O Emmanuel.

The O Antiphons are sung during which canticle at Vespers?

The Magnificat: after the Second Vatican Council's reforms, the same antiphons also became the Alleluia verses at Mass on those days.

What is the earliest known record of Christmas being celebrated on 25 December?

The Chronograph of 354: why that date was chosen is disputed; one theory links it to a Roman solar feast, another counts nine months from 25 March.

Which fourth-century pilgrim described Jerusalem's bishop going by night to Bethlehem for the feast of Christ's birth?

Egeria: in her day Jerusalem still celebrated Christ's birth within the feast she called Epiphany.

Under Rome's ancient three-Mass custom, which basilica hosted the Christmas midnight Mass?

Santa Maria Maggiore: there the Mass was said at a relic believed to be Christ's crib, echoing Jerusalem's midnight Mass in Bethlehem.

What is the official Latin name of what most Catholics call Midnight Mass?

Missa in nocte, 'Mass during the Night', is the Roman Missal's name for it; it need not begin at midnight, and the Vatican moved its celebration to 10 pm in 2009.

At which times are the three Christmas Masses traditionally said?

Night, dawn, day: Thomas Aquinas explained the three Masses by Christ's threefold birth, from eternity, in time and in the soul.

Which saint staged the first live nativity scene, at Greccio in 1223?

Francis of Assisi: Greccio's caves reminded him of the countryside around Bethlehem, which he had seen on a visit to the Holy Land.

Which two animals are traditionally shown at the manger, though neither appears in the Gospel accounts?

An ox and a donkey: they were drawn into the scene from an Old Testament verse about the ox knowing its owner and the donkey its master's crib.

When does Christmastide begin in the Catholic liturgical calendar?

At sunset on Christmas Eve: Christmas Time opens with First Vespers of the Nativity on the evening of 24 December, so most of Christmas Eve itself belongs to Advent.

Whose feast, honouring the first Christian martyr, falls on 26 December?

Saint Stephen: as he was stoned to death, his final words were a prayer that his killers be forgiven.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents on 28 December commemorates children killed on whose orders?

Herod the Great: yet the historian Josephus, who recorded many of Herod's cruelties, never mentions the massacre.

What solemnity does the Catholic Church celebrate on 1 January, the Octave Day of Christmas?

Mary, Mother of God: traditional calendars instead keep 1 January as the feast of Christ's Circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth.

What does the papal blessing 'Urbi et Orbi', given at Christmas, literally mean?

To the city and to the world: before Rome was occupied, popes gave this blessing from the balconies of several of its basilicas.

Epiphany is traditionally celebrated on which date in January?

The 6th: yet a bishops' conference may move Epiphany to the Sunday between 2 and 8 January instead.

In Italian folklore, who delivers gifts to children on the night of 5 January?

The Befana: her name is thought to come from Epifania, the Italian for Epiphany, and naughty children get lumps of coal instead of sweets.

What is the ring-shaped cake eaten in Mexico at Epiphany called?

Rosca de Reyes: in Mexico, whoever finds the little doll baked inside must throw a party later on.

Which ruler did Pope Leo III crown emperor on Christmas Day in the year 800?

Charlemagne: the crowning revived the title of emperor in the West, which had lapsed for over 300 years.

The Filipino dawn Masses of Simbang Gabi began in 1669 as a compromise for whom?

Farmers who worked before sunrise: Spanish friars in the Philippines moved the novena Masses to dawn so farm labourers could attend before going to the fields; anticipated evening Masses are a later convenience.

What is the Christmas Eve Mass called at the end of Simbang Gabi?

Misa de Gallo: after the Simbang Gabi Masses, churchgoers traditionally buy rice cakes such as bibingka and puto bumbong from stalls outside.

Which pope defined the Immaculate Conception as dogma in 1854?

Pius IX: four years later at Lourdes, Bernadette Soubirous said the Lady who appeared to her called herself 'the Immaculate Conception'.

To whom did Our Lady of Guadalupe appear in December 1531?

Juan Diego: after the apparitions, he was allowed to live beside the new shrine at Tepeyac and spent the rest of his life caring for it.

What flowers did the visionary find blooming on the barren hill of Tepeyac in December?

Castile roses: when he opened his cloak before the bishop, the flowers fell out and the Virgin's image appeared on the cloth.

Saint Nicholas, whose feast falls on 6 December, was bishop of which city?

Myra: in 1087 Italian merchants carried off his body to Bari, where his shrine still stands.

'Silent Night' was first sung in 1818 at Oberndorf, near which Austrian city?

Salzburg: travelling folk-singing families from Austria's Zillertal later carried the carol across Europe and the world.

Which English priest translated 'Adeste Fideles' as 'O Come, All Ye Faithful' in 1841?

Frederick Oakeley: he made the translation while still an Anglican clergyman, four years before he became a Catholic.

Which pope introduced the Christmas tree to St Peter's Square in 1982?

John Paul II, the Polish-born pope, set up the first Christmas tree in St Peter's Square in 1982; since then a different European country or region has donated the tree each year.

Which feast on 2 February recalls the infant Jesus being presented in the Temple?

Candlemas: forty days after Christmas, many churches bless the candles they will use through the rest of the year.

Which hymn, omitted on Advent Sundays, returns at the first Mass of Christmas?

The Gloria: it opens with the words the angels sang to the shepherds at Christ's birth, which is why it is called the Hymn of the Angels.

Before Christmas Midnight Mass, the Nativity Proclamation (Kalenda) may be chanted from which book?

The Roman Martyrology supplies the Christmas Proclamation, or Kalenda, which dates the Nativity from creation, Abraham, the Exodus, the founding of Rome and the 42nd year of Augustus.

Which Eastern Churches celebrate Christmas on what is 7 January by civil reckoning?

Those still using the Julian calendar: their 25 December lines up with 7 January in the civil calendar, but only until the year 2100.

'Rorate caeli', sung throughout Advent, opens with which prophet's words 'Drop down, ye heavens'?

Isaiah: 'Rorate caeli desuper' is Isaiah 45:8, sung through Advent to voice the longing for the coming of the Messiah.

Which feast usually ends the Catholic Christmas season, on the Sunday after Epiphany?

The Baptism of the Lord: Eastern Churches instead mark Christ's baptism on Epiphany itself, calling that feast Theophany.

Which Gospel is the only one to tell of shepherds visiting the newborn Jesus?

Luke: the Magi and their star appear only in Matthew's Gospel, which tells no story of the shepherds.

Which US city displays the world's only authorised replica of the Vatican's Christmas crèche?

Pittsburgh: the Pittsburgh Crèche, first set up in 1999 beside the US Steel Tower, is billed as the only authorised replica of the Vatican's nativity and stands from Light Up Night in November until Epiphany.

Which instrument, replacing a possibly flood-damaged organ, accompanied the first performance of 'Silent Night'?

A guitar part was composed that same day by schoolmaster Franz Gruber, at the request of Joseph Mohr, the young priest who had written the words two years earlier.

Matthew's Gospel never counts the Magi, so the Western tradition of three wise men is inferred from what detail?

The gifts they brought number three, so Western Christians assumed one giver for each gift. Syriac Christians often count twelve Magi instead.

In a popular origin story of the candy cane, a choirmaster had sugar sticks bent into which shape for children?

A shepherd's crook was meant to remind children of the shepherds at the crib, which let him justify handing out sweets during the service. The tale is set in Germany in 1670.

Santa Claus's name is a phonetic version of 'Sinterklaas', the name for Saint Nicholas in which European language?

Dutch settlers carried the Sinterklaas legend to New Amsterdam, now New York, in the 17th century, and the American Santa grew out of it two hundred years later.

Which red-leaved plant did friars in 17th-century Mexico begin including in their Christmas celebrations?

Poinsettia leaves form a star shape said to recall the Star of Bethlehem. The English name honours Joel Poinsett, the first US minister to Mexico, who sent plants home in the 1820s.

On the eve of Saint Nicholas Day, what do children leave out overnight, hoping to find coins or sweets by morning?

Their shoes wait by the door for the saint's night-time visit, and in some countries children tuck in hay and a carrot for his horse.

The X in 'Xmas' stands for which Greek letter, the first letter of the Greek word for Christ?

Chi has stood in for the holy name since at least 1021, when a scribe of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle wrote it that way, so 'Xmas' is an old abbreviation and not a modern snub.

Which resin used for embalming did the Magi bring the infant Jesus, read by Christians as a sign of his death?

Myrrh was an embalming oil, so Christians read it as pointing ahead to the cross. In Exodus it is also an ingredient of the sacred oil used to anoint priests.

Which archangel, who explains visions to the prophet Daniel, later tells Mary that she will bear a son?

Gabriel's words to Mary became the opening line of the Hail Mary, which is why the prayer is also called the Angelic Salutation.

Which word for Christmas, heard in many English carols, is French and comes from the Latin for birthday?

Noël entered English in the late 14th century as 'nowel', a name for the feast itself, and the word can also mean a Christmas carol.

From which town in Galilee, the childhood home of Jesus, did Mary and Joseph set out for the census?

Nazareth was a small village in Gospel times; today it is known as the Arab capital of Israel and is the largest city in the country's Northern District.

To which country did Joseph take Mary and the infant Jesus after an angel warned him in a dream?

Egypt still has churches and shrines marking places where the family is said to have stayed, and Coptic Christians keep a feast of the child's arrival each June.

Which trade is Saint Joseph traditionally said to have followed, since Matthew's Gospel calls Jesus the son of one?

A carpenter's square is Joseph's emblem in church art, and Catholics keep 1 May as the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker.

Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census as a descendant of which Israelite king, a harpist in his youth?

David came from Bethlehem himself, so the angel announces a saviour born in the city of David, and the Gospels trace the child's family line back to him.

In the Christmas Gospel, what does Mary wrap her newborn son in before laying him in a manger?

Swaddling clothes were bound round any newborn of the time, and the angel gives that ordinary sight to the shepherds as the sign by which they will know the child.

In the Christmas Gospel, Mary lays the newborn Jesus in an animals' feeding trough because there was no room where?

In the inn is the familiar translation, but the Greek word can also mean a room in a private home, so nobody can be certain which kind of lodging was full.

Which desert preacher, heard in the Gospel readings on two Sundays of Advent, wore camel's hair and ate locusts?

John the Baptist told the crowds to prepare the way of the Lord, the same call that Advent makes to churchgoers in the weeks before Christmas.

Which older relative, herself six months pregnant, did Mary hurry to visit in the hill country of Judea?

Elizabeth greeted Mary with the blessing that became the second line of the Hail Mary, and the meeting is honoured as the feast of the Visitation.

Which Roman emperor's decree for a census sends Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem in the Christmas Gospel?

Caesar Augustus is named in the story's opening line, yet historians know of no single census of his whole empire, so the dating of the journey is still argued over.

Which name does Western tradition give to one of the Magi, shown in art since the Renaissance as a black African king?

Balthazar and his companions Caspar and Melchior are never named in the Bible; the names first appear in a Latin chronicle of the eighth century.

Which feast on 25 March, nine months before Christmas, recalls the angel's message that Mary would bear a son?

The Annunciation was once New Year's Day in many Christian countries, because the age of grace was held to begin when Christ was conceived, not when he was born.

Which old man, promised a sight of the Messiah before death, took the infant Jesus in his arms in the Temple?

Simeon's prayer of thanks, known by its Latin opening as the Nunc dimittis, is still said every night at Compline, the Church's last prayer of the day.

Which Advent custom has children hang symbols such as a burning bush for Moses and a ram for Isaac?

A Jesse Tree borrows its name from medieval church art, such as a famous window at Chartres Cathedral, that drew the ancestors of Jesus as the branches of a tree.

For Catholics, the First Sunday of Advent is the first day of what, with its own cycle of Sunday readings?

The liturgical year sets the readings for every Sunday on a three-year cycle, so the Gospel heard at Mass changes over when Advent starts, not on 1 January.

Christmas, like the Assumption and All Saints, belongs to which class of feast that Catholics keep like a Sunday?

Days of obligation once numbered 36 besides Sundays; a reform of 1911 cut them to eight, and the Church's universal list now names ten.

Las Posadas and Simbang Gabi are both examples of which Catholic devotion, prayed over a set number of consecutive days?

A novena lasts nine days, and at Las Posadas the nine nights are said to stand for the nine months that Mary carried her child.

The Nativity belongs to which set of Rosary mysteries, prayed on Mondays, Saturdays and the Sundays of Advent?

Joyful mysteries follow the childhood of Jesus, ending with his parents finding the twelve-year-old among the teachers in the Temple.

Which solemnity, created in 1925 to answer rising secularism, falls on the Sunday just before Advent begins?

Christ the King was first kept at the end of October; it was moved in 1970 so that the weeks of Ordinary Time would close on the theme of his reign.

Which vestment colour, also worn on feasts of angels and of saints who were not martyrs, is used at Christmas Mass?

White is kept right through the Christmas season, though on the most solemn days more precious vestments may be worn whatever their colour.

Advent takes its name from the Latin 'adventus', a word the Church applied to the Saviour, meaning what?

Coming has a double sense in the season: Advent looks back to the first arrival at Bethlehem and ahead to the return of Jesus at the end of time.

Which martyr of Syracuse is honoured on 13 December by girls wearing crowns of candles in Scandinavia?

Saint Lucy is said to have worn a wreath of candles to light her way while carrying food to Christians hiding in the catacombs, which left both her hands free.

Which carol began as a French poem that a parish priest requested for Midnight Mass in the town of Roquemaure?

O Holy Night was first sung at that Mass in 1847 under its French title; the familiar English words were written in 1855 by an American minister, John Sullivan Dwight.

Which Italian-American Christmas Eve meal grew from the custom of abstaining from meat on the vigil of a holy day?

Feast of the Seven Fishes has no agreed reason for its number: the seven sacraments and the seven hills of Rome are both offered as explanations.

In which country do families break and share a thin wafer called opłatek before the Christmas Eve supper, Wigilia?

Poland's custom starts with the eldest person at the table, who breaks off a piece and passes the wafer on; sharing it stands for forgiveness and reconciliation.

Which country lights its Christmas season with parols, star-shaped lanterns traditionally made of bamboo and paper?

The Philippines took the word from the Spanish farol, meaning lantern; early parols were lit with candles or oil lamps and carried in Christmas processions.

Bethlehem, where the Gospels place the Nativity, has a Hebrew name with which literal meaning?

House of bread is the Hebrew sense of Bet Lehem; in Arabic the same sounds mean house of meat, and the name has been pronounced much the same way for some 3,500 years.

Which German city's cathedral, begun in 1248, was planned to house a shrine said to hold the bones of the Magi?

Cologne received the relics in 1164, when the emperor Barbarossa took them from a church in Milan and gave them to the city's archbishop.

At Las Posadas parties in Mexico, the points of a traditional star-shaped piñata are said to stand for what?

The seven deadly sins take a beating from a blindfolded player, the blindfold standing for faith, while the clay pot itself is said to represent evil.

Which biblical couple's name day on 24 December was marked by plays using a fir, a forerunner of the Christmas tree?

Adam and Eve plays needed a paradise tree, so a fir was hung with apples; some researchers see those props, later set up in homes, as the first Christmas trees.

Which Temple priest was struck mute for doubting an angel's promise that his elderly wife would bear a son?

Zechariah got his voice back the moment he wrote the baby's name on a tablet, and his song of praise is still prayed at Lauds, the Church's morning prayer.

Which Archbishop of Canterbury, killed in his own cathedral by four knights in 1170, has his feast on 29 December?

Thomas Becket died in the middle of the Christmas octave after a long quarrel with Henry II; his shrine drew pilgrims for centuries until Henry VIII had it destroyed in 1538.

Which entrance to St Peter's Basilica, bricked up between jubilees for centuries, did the pope open on 24 December 2024?

The Holy Door once had to be freed from a solid wall, and until the jubilee of 2000 popes began the rite by knocking on it three times with a silver hammer.

Which pope, elected weeks after the First World War began, called in vain for a general Christmas truce in 1914?

Benedict XV was ignored by the warring governments, yet soldiers in the trenches arranged informal truces of their own that Christmas.

Which Roman emperor commissioned the first Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem soon after his mother Helena's visit?

Constantine I had the basilica raised over the cave honoured as the birthplace; it was probably burned in a sixth-century revolt, and the church standing today is a later rebuilding.

Which Roman god's birthday, which Emperor Aurelian may have set on 25 December, is often linked to Christmas's date?

Sol Invictus means the Unconquered Sun, and 25 December was the winter solstice in the Roman calendar; one theory holds that the Church chose the day to take over the festival.

In Germany and Austria, New Year's Eve takes its name from which fourth-century pope, whose feast falls on 31 December?

Sylvester I was pope from 314 to 335 and died on 31 December, so when that date became the last night of the calendar year his name went to the party.

By ancient custom, the date of which feast is announced at Mass on Epiphany, since many other celebrations depend on it?

Easter moves every year, and the custom dates from a time when calendars were scarce, so the Church used the Epiphany congregation to spread word of the date.

At Christmas Masses, Catholics genuflect instead of bowing at the words on the Incarnation in which prayer?

The Creed gets the deeper gesture on only two days of the year; on every other Sunday the congregation simply bows at the line about God becoming man.

Which French region is the home of santons, small clay figures that fill nativity scenes with village characters?

Provence took to the figurines during the French Revolution, when churches were closed and their large nativity scenes banned, so families set up small ones at home.

Which gift-bringer, promoted by Protestant reformers to rival Saint Nicholas, is traditional in Austria and Bavaria?

The Christkind moved present-giving from early December to Christmas Eve; Catholic parts of Germany adopted the figure only in the 19th century, usually picturing a child with angel's wings.