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The Christmas truce took place during which year of the First World War?
Informal ceasefires broke out along stretches of the Western Front that December, with carols, gift swaps and joint burials.
Which country's 1970s advertising campaign turned fried chicken into a national Christmas custom?
The campaign was effective enough that families now book fried chicken buckets weeks in advance.
Who composed the song "White Christmas"?
He wrote it for a 1942 musical, and it went on to become the biggest-selling single in the world on physical media.
"Silent Night" was added to which organisation's intangible cultural heritage list in 2011?
The carol was recognised as intangible cultural heritage nearly two centuries after it was first sung.
Boxing Day's name is most often traced back to what?
One leading theory points to the alms box in a church narthex, opened to distribute collections to the poor.
How should the story that candy canes were invented at Cologne Cathedral in 1670 be described?
No reference to the Cologne story appears before the mid-twentieth century. The earliest documented Christmas mentions are from the 1870s and 1880s.
Krampus traditionally accompanies Saint Nicholas on the night of which date?
He appears on the evening before the Feast of Saint Nicholas, handling the punishments while Nicholas hands out gifts.
Who wrote the melody of "Silent Night"?
A village priest wrote the words and asked the local schoolmaster and organist to set them for voices and guitar.
"White Christmas" was first introduced in which 1942 film?
The song appeared in a musical about an inn that opens only on public holidays, and later got a film named after itself.
Which body outlawed the observance of Christmas in England in 1647?
Parliament dismissed it as a festival with no scriptural basis and an excuse for excess.
Who commissioned the first commercial Christmas card in 1843?
He had a thousand copies printed as a way of handling the sheer volume of seasonal letters he owed.
Joel Roberts Poinsett, who gave the poinsettia its English name, held which post?
He sent the plant home to his South Carolina greenhouses in the 1820s while serving as a diplomat.
Saint Nicholas served as bishop of which ancient city?
The city sat in Lycia, in what is now southern Turkey, and his reputation for secret gift-giving spread from there.
Which writer created the red-nosed reindeer character in 1939?
He wrote the story as a work assignment for a Chicago retailer, ten years before the song charted.
Who wrote the song "Jingle Bells"?
He published it in the 1850s under a different title, and it had no original connection to Christmas.
Roughly how many British and German troops took part in the Christmas truce?
Accounts of carols, gift swaps and joint burials come from stretches all along the Western Front.
Whose recording of the red-nosed reindeer song topped the US pop chart at Christmas 1949?
The singing cowboy's version hit number one and turned a promotional booklet character into a permanent fixture.
Estimated physical sales of the best-known "White Christmas" recording exceed how many copies?
That total makes it the best-selling single in the world on physical media.
Which publication ran the 1846 illustration that made Christmas trees fashionable in Britain?
Once the royal family was pictured around a decorated tree, the custom spread quickly through Britain and East Coast America.
In what year was "Jingle Bells" first published?
It appeared in September of that year, and only picked up its familiar short title on republication two years later.
Which artist illustrated the first commercial Christmas card?
His triptych showed a family at table flanked by scenes of people helping the poor.
Boston's 1659 law against keeping Christmas carried a fine of how much?
The ban stood until 1681, when an English-appointed governor revoked it.
Which poet is usually credited with "A Visit from St. Nicholas", though the attribution is disputed?
He claimed the anonymous 1823 poem as his own in 1837, but another writer's family has long contested it.
Moravian Germans in Pennsylvania set up a community Christmas display in 1747 in what form?
The candle-decorated structure predates the earliest records of cut trees in Pennsylvania by about 70 years.
In the original 1823 printing of "A Visit from St. Nicholas", two reindeer were named what?
Later editions smoothed the Dutch-derived spellings into the versions sung today.
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