96 Fun Facts About Holiday Party

In which holiday gift exchange does each guest draw one name and buy only for that person?

Secret Santa is known in Germany as Wichteln, after the Wichtel, a sprite of Nordic folklore who does good deeds in secret.

Which creamy, nutmeg-topped holiday drink is often spiked with rum or brandy?

Eggnog once caused a riot: at West Point in 1826, cadets smuggled in whiskey to spike the Christmas batch, and the drunken night ended in courts-martial.

What festive plant with vibrant red and green leaves is a popular winter holiday decoration?

Poinsettia's red 'petals' are really bracts, modified leaves that turn colour only after weeks of long, unbroken nights; the true flowers are the tiny yellow buds at the centre.

Which hot spiced holiday drink is named after an old toast meaning 'be in good health'?

Wassail comes from the Old Norse toast 'ves heill', 'be healthy'; in England's cider country, wassailers also sing to the apple trees in midwinter to bring on a good harvest.

Which mid-December Roman festival is often cited as an influence on modern holiday gift-giving and feasting?

Saturnalia began on 17 December and turned Rome upside down: slaves feasted like their masters, in some accounts waited on by them, and friends swapped candles and small figurines called sigillaria.

What type of holiday gathering typically involves guests bringing a dish to share with everyone?

A potluck is a shared meal to which every guest brings a dish; the phrase 'pot luck' appears in English by 1592, meaning whatever food happened to be in the pot for an unexpected guest.

In Kwanzaa celebrations, what is the name of the holder for the seven candles?

The kinara, Swahili for 'candle holder', carries one candle for each of Kwanzaa's seven principles; a new one is lit each day, starting with the centre candle.

Which fruit do Spaniards eat at each stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve for luck?

Grapes, twelve of them, one per chime: Madrid papers record the custom in the 19th century, and Alicante growers are said to have pushed it in 1909 to shift a bumper harvest.

Which traditional Hanukkah-party game is played with a four-sided spinning top, often for chocolate coins?

Dreidel's four Hebrew letters tell each player what to do with the pot, take nothing, take it all, take half or pay in; they are popularly read as 'a great miracle happened there'.

Which intricate art form using colored powders or petals decorates entrances at Diwali?

Rangoli at the threshold is meant to welcome Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and good luck, into the home, and some designs include her footprints.

Whose business partner hand-wired the first electric Christmas tree lights, in a New York parlour in 1882?

Thomas Edison's partner Edward Johnson wound 80 hand-wired red, white and blue bulbs round a revolving tree at his New York home, at a time when trees were lit with candles.

Sweet-maker Tom Smith added a bang to wrapped bon-bons, creating which item?

The Christmas cracker bangs when two people pull it apart and a chemically treated strip snaps by friction; Smith is said to have got the idea from a log crackling on his fire.

At Scotland's Hogmanay, what name is given to the visitor who arrives just after midnight bearing coal, shortbread or whisky?

The first-foot is thought to set the household's luck for the year, which is why a tall, dark-haired man is the caller most places hope for.

Which party game has guests swap amusing or impractical gifts, with the option of 'stealing' someone else's pick?

White Elephant takes its name from a tale that Siam's kings gave rare white elephants to courtiers who displeased them, a gift whose upkeep was ruinous.

What feast crowns Kwanzaa on December 31st?

Karamu Ya Imani, the Feast of Faith, falls on 31 December, the sixth of Kwanzaa's seven days; celebrants share a libation from a common cup passed around the gathering.

Which jelly-filled fried doughnut is a traditional treat at Hanukkah parties?

Sufganiyot are deep-fried on purpose: Hanukkah foods cooked in oil recall the Temple oil that, in the holiday's story, burned for eight days instead of one.

New Year's fireworks trace back to which country, where exploding bamboo was burned to scare off evil spirits?

China: bamboo thrown on a fire bursts with a bang, and when gunpowder firecrackers arrived they kept the old name, which means 'exploding bamboo'.

Which French term names the small dishes served before a meal, usually eaten by hand while guests mingle?

Hors d'oeuvres literally means 'outside the work': the bites stand apart from the ordinary courses of a meal, and English borrowed the phrase in the early 1700s.

Who composed the Christmas Eve ballet 'The Nutcracker'?

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky came across a newly invented instrument, the celesta, in Paris and asked his publisher to get one; its bell-like chime became the voice of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

What decorative strand of interwoven leaves or flowers is often wrapped around a Christmas tree or draped on a mantel?

A garland can also seal a marriage: at Hindu weddings the bride and groom place flower garlands on each other to show they accept one another.

In France, the guest who finds the charm baked into a galette des rois gets to wear what?

A paper crown comes with the cake for whoever finds the charm; to keep things fair, the youngest guest hides under the table and calls out who gets each slice.

What is the collective term for the South Asian sweets, such as ladoos and barfis, shared at Diwali?

Mithai are as much a gift as a dessert: for Diwali they are made at home or bought, then shared with relatives, friends and neighbours along with the festival greeting.

Festivus, the anti-commercial holiday from a 1997 'Seinfeld' episode, swaps the Christmas tree for what?

An aluminum pole, left bare, was the writers' touch, as was the date, December 23: the real O'Keefe family Festivus used a clock in a bag nailed to the wall.

Which fried potato pancakes, served with applesauce or sour cream, are a Hanukkah staple?

Latkes are thought to have begun as fried cheese pancakes; the potato took over only once it became a staple crop in Eastern Europe.

Which German-speaking gift-bringer did Martin Luther promote in place of Saint Nicholas?

Christkindl means 'Christ Child'; Martin Luther promoted the Child as gift-bringer to draw Protestants away from Saint Nicholas, moving the gifts from the saint's feast day to Christmas Eve.

Times Square's ball copies the time balls once dropped daily so who could set their clocks?

Ships' captains: Greenwich began dropping a ball at one o'clock each afternoon in 1833 so crews on the Thames could set their chronometers, and New York borrowed the idea for New Year's Eve 1907.

The tradition of kissing under which plant is a well-known holiday party custom?

Kissing under the mistletoe caught on among servants in eighteenth-century England; in one version of the custom each kiss cost a berry, and when the berries were gone the kissing stopped.

Danes see in the New Year with champagne and which tower of stacked almond-cake rings?

Kransekage is a cone of baked almond-paste rings stuck together with white icing; for weddings the same rings are built into a horn of plenty and filled with sweets.

Which spice of holiday baking and mulled drinks is the dried inner bark of a tree?

Cinnamon is peeled from Cinnamomum trees in strips that curl up as they dry, forming the quills that gave the spice names meaning 'little tube' in several languages.

What activity at holiday parties involves teams acting out words or phrases without speaking?

Charades began in 18th-century France as a written riddle about each syllable of a word; the acted version, in which players mime the syllables in turn, took over in 19th-century parlours.

What are the three colours of the seven Kwanzaa candles?

Black, red and green are the Pan-African colours: the single black candle in the centre is lit first, then the three red and three green candles on either side, one a day.

In which country do New Year's Eve revellers hoping to travel walk the streets carrying a suitcase?

In Chile the suitcase walk is one of several midnight rituals that follow the hugs and the toast, along with a spoonful of lentils eaten for luck.

Which Brothers Grimm fairy tale is credited with making decorated gingerbread houses popular?

Hansel and Gretel sends two lost children to a witch's house made of bread and sweets; German bakers' decorated gingerbread houses boomed after the Grimms published it in 1812.

Which candle on the Hanukkah menorah is used to light all the others?

The shamash, or 'helper', has a ninth holder set higher or lower than the rest; it is used to kindle the others, one more each night until all eight burn.

Which pink cocktail of vodka, triple sec, cranberry and lime became a 1990s party favourite?

The Cosmopolitan was Carrie Bradshaw's regular order in Sex and the City, the series widely credited with making the drink famous.

In the Philippines, which clothing pattern is worn on New Year's Eve to attract prosperity?

Polka dots are worn on New Year's Eve in the Philippines because circles resemble coins; households also pile twelve round fruits on the table for a prosperous year.

Which party game did toy salesman Edwin Lowe find at a 1929 Georgia carnival, where it was called 'Beano'?

Bingo was 'Beano' when Lowe saw carnival-goers covering their numbers with dried beans; he took the game home to New York and it became a Depression-era craze.

Which activist created Kwanzaa, first celebrated in 1966?

Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, hoping to bring Black Americans together; the name comes from the Swahili for 'first fruits'.

Which rolled sponge dessert, iced to resemble tree bark, is a Christmas classic?

The Yule log cake stands in for a real one: families once burned a great log on the hearth on Christmas Eve, and 19th-century pastry cooks, probably in France, turned it into dessert.

What shiny metallic strands, designed to mimic ice, get draped over Christmas trees?

Tinsel was invented in Nuremberg around 1610 as strands of real silver; cheaper metals such as lead replaced the silver, and plastic took over in the 1970s.

Which chilled party drink mixes red wine with chopped fruit and sometimes a splash of brandy?

Sangria literally means 'a bleeding', from sangre, 'blood': the drink was named for its deep red colour, and English had borrowed it as 'sangaree' by the 1700s.

For Jains, Diwali marks the final nirvana of which figure?

Jains hold that Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara, attained final liberation at Pawapuri on Diwali night; in the Jain telling, kings lit lamps because 'the light of knowledge' had gone out.

Danes are said to 'leap into the new year' at the stroke of midnight by doing what?

Jumping off a chair or sofa as the clock strikes twelve lands Danes in the new year; many climb up straight after the old comedy sketch Dinner for One, shown every 31 December.

What is the Swahili name for the seven principles of Kwanzaa?

The Nguzo Saba run from unity on the first night to faith on the last: each evening one more candle is lit and that day's principle is talked over.

What circular decoration of evergreens, berries and ornaments is typically hung on doors?

A wreath has no beginning or end, so Christians took its ring of evergreens as a sign of unending life; long before, the Greeks gave Olympic victors one of olive.

What are the small decorative clay lamps traditionally lit during Diwali called?

Diyas are clay lamps of oil or ghee with a cotton wick; in the Ramayana story behind Diwali, rows of them were lit to welcome Rama home to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile.

Which soft confection, made by cooking sugar, butter and milk to the soft-ball stage, is a holiday-party classic?

Fudge took off as a craze at American women's colleges in the late 1800s; Vassar student Emelyn Hartridge claimed to have introduced it there in 1888 by selling a 30-pound batch.

Which word for a Christmas song originally meant a medieval ring dance with singers?

A carol was danced in a ring from the 1150s; the songs later moved into festival processions, and only afterwards did the word settle on Christmas.

Which country's Christmas Eve tradition, the 'Jolabokaflod', revolves around gifting books?

Iceland's Jolabokaflod, the 'Christmas book flood', took hold in 1944, when wartime import limits were looser on paper than on other gifts; a free catalogue of new titles, the Bokatidindi, is delivered to every household.

Which horned figure roams Alpine towns on the eve of Saint Nicholas's Day, punishing naughty children?

Krampus comes out on 5 December, the eve of the saint's feast; in Alpine towns, men in horned masks and bells run the streets, swatting onlookers with birch switches.

Italy's broom-riding Befana delivers sweets and coal to children on the eve of which feast?

La Befana comes on the night of 5 January, the eve of Epiphany, filling stockings with sweets or coal; legend says she declined to join the Magi and has searched for the Christ child ever since.

The title of the New Year's Eve song 'Auld Lang Syne' means roughly what?

Times long past: the Scots words are literally 'old long since'; Robert Burns sent the song to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, saying he had taken it down from an old man.

Twister became a hit after Eva Gabor played it on TV in 1966 with which talk-show host?

Johnny Carson's game with Eva Gabor on The Tonight Show showed viewers how Twister worked and sales took off; it was nearly sold as 'Pretzel', but that name was already taken.

In the Mexican Catholic reading of the piñata, what do its points represent?

The deadly sins: each of the seven points stands for one, and the blindfold on whoever swings the stick stands for faith, so breaking the pinata acts out belief overcoming sin.

Which paper party staple is named after the small sweets once thrown at carnival parades?

Confetti is the Italian plural of confetto, a small sweet: carnival revellers pelted each other with sugared sweets, then with chalk or plaster imitations, before paper took over.

In 1843, London civil servant Henry Cole commissioned the first commercial example of which festive item?

The Christmas card: with his seasonal mail piling up, Cole had artist John Callcott Horsley draw one design for everyone, then sold spare copies at a shilling apiece, a steep price at the time.

Which country has gifted London its Trafalgar Square Christmas tree every year since 1947?

Norway's capital Oslo has sent the tree every year since 1947 in thanks for British support during the Second World War, when Norway's king lived in exile in Britain.

On 'Stir-up Sunday' in late November, British families traditionally start making what?

Stir-up Sunday takes its name from that day's Book of Common Prayer collect, 'Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord'; cooks took it as the cue to mix the Christmas pudding, each family member stirring and making a wish.

The tall Christmas sweet bread panettone is associated with which Italian city?

Milan's legends name the loaf after a Toni, in one telling a kitchen boy whose improvised sweet bread rescued a ruined banquet and became the 'pan de Toni'.

Which German city's bakers alone may sell Christmas stollen under its name and official seal?

Dresden guards the name by law: only bakeries in and around the city may sell 'Dresdner Christstollen', and each loaf's seal shows Augustus the Strong, the Saxon ruler who ordered a giant stollen in 1730.

Thanks to a 1974 advertising campaign, which fast food became Japan's classic Christmas dinner?

Fried chicken: KFC's first Japanese manager, Takeshi Okawara, began selling 'party barrels' in 1970 as a stand-in for the turkey dinner foreigners missed, and 'Kentucky for Christmas' went national in 1974.

Catalan children beat the Tió de Nadal log with sticks at Christmas to make it do what?

The Caga Tió, or 'pooping log', is fed every night in the run-up to Christmas and tucked under a blanket; children then beat it with sticks, singing for it to poop out presents and sweets.

Sweden's giant straw Gävle Goat, raised each Advent since 1966, is notorious for what?

Being burned down has been the goat's fate in most years since the first went up in flames on New Year's Eve 1966, though arson there can bring a three-month prison sentence.

Which saint's December feast brings candlelit white-robed processions across Scandinavia?

Saint Lucy's Day, 13 December, once fell on the shortest day of the year under the old Julian calendar, so the saint whose name means 'light' became the centre of a festival of candles.

The Dutch gift-bringer Sinterklaas traditionally arrives each year by steamboat from which country?

Spain and the steamboat probably come from an 1850 picture book by Amsterdam teacher Jan Schenkman, which set the modern form of the arrival now staged each November.

The Greek New Year's cake with a hidden coin honours which saint's feast day?

Saint Basil's feast is 1 January, when the vasilopita is cut and whoever finds the coin is promised a lucky year; in one legend the saint returned his city's ransom gold baked into loaves.

In the US South, the black-eyed peas in New Year's Day Hoppin' John are said to stand for what?

The peas are usually read as pennies or coins, sometimes as prosperity itself because they swell in the pot; the greens served alongside are the folding money and the cornbread is the gold.

Oliebollen, raisin-studded fried dough balls, are the New Year's Eve treat of which country?

The Netherlands' oliebollen, literally 'oil balls', have famous descendants: Dutch settlers took their 'oil cakes' to New York, where they fed into the American doughnut.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is a Christmas Eve seafood spread from which community?

Italian Americans keep Christmas Eve as la Vigilia, a vigil when meat was off the table, so the feast became a run of fish dishes; nobody agrees why seven, and some tables serve more.

Which country's Santa figure, Joulupukki, has a name that literally means 'Christmas goat'?

Finland's Joulupukki descends from rowdy midwinter callers who went from house to house in goat costume; only later did the figure merge with the gift-bringing Santa Claus.

Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden who helps Ded Moroz hand out New Year gifts, is usually said to be his what?

Snegurochka became Ded Moroz's granddaughter and helper at Soviet-era New Year parties; in Ostrovsky's 1873 play The Snow Maiden she had been Father Frost's daughter.

Olivier salad is a centrepiece of New Year's Eve tables in which country?

Russia's Olivier salad began in 1860s Moscow as chef Lucien Olivier's luxury dish of grouse, crayfish and caviar; today's version is built from potatoes, peas and diced sausage or ham.

Japanese temple bells ring 108 times on New Year's Eve, once for each of what?

Earthly desires: Buddhist teaching counts 108 of them, the bonno, and in the usual explanation each stroke of the Joya no Kane clears one away before the new year.

Which 'year-crossing' noodles do Japanese families eat on New Year's Eve, their easily cut strands a sign of letting go?

Soba, eaten as toshikoshi or 'year-crossing' noodles before midnight on 31 December: buckwheat strands break more easily than other noodles, so the bowl is said to cut off the old year's troubles.

At Lunar New Year gatherings, red envelopes of cash usually go to whom?

Red envelopes (hongbao) go from married elders to children and younger, unmarried guests, since by custom only the married count as full adults; the red is meant to bring luck and ward off evil spirits.

Hamantaschen, the filled Purim party pastries named for the villain Haman, have what shape?

Hamantaschen are triangular pockets folded round poppy-seed or fruit filling; one theory has the name begin as 'Mohntaschen', poppy pockets, later punned into Haman's, and in Hebrew they are 'Haman's ears'.

At a Burns supper, which dish is piped in and addressed with a poem before it is cut?

Haggis is honoured with Burns's 'Address to a Haggis'; his friends held the first supper in July 1801, on the anniversary of his death, and later suppers moved to his birthday, 25 January.

The first Oktoberfest, in October 1810, was thrown in Munich to celebrate what?

The royal wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on 12 October 1810 was celebrated with a horse race on the meadow since named the Theresienwiese.

Which cartoon character was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade's first balloon, in 1927?

Felix the Cat, a balloon designed by puppeteer Tony Sarg, came in to replace the live zoo animals of the first parades, which had frightened young spectators.

Which president, in the late 1980s, turned the White House Thanksgiving turkey 'pardon' into an annual tradition?

George H. W. Bush made the pardon a yearly ritual in 1989; Harry Truman, often credited with starting it, told reporters his turkeys were headed for the family dinner table.

Before pumpkins took over, Halloween jack-o'-lanterns were commonly carved from which vegetable?

Turnips, as in the Irish tale of Stingy Jack, doomed to roam the earth with only a hollowed-out one for a lantern; Irish immigrants brought the custom to America, home of the pumpkin.

Chef Joe Sheridan is credited with creating which drink in the 1940s to warm flying-boat passengers turned back by bad weather?

Irish coffee is credited to Sheridan at Foynes, on the Shannon estuary: asked for something hot for passengers whose flying boat had turned back, he laced their coffee with whiskey.

The Bellini, Prosecco with peach purée, was invented at Harry's Bar in which city?

Giuseppe Cipriani created the Bellini at Harry's Bar in Venice and named it for its pink colour, which reminded him of the tones in paintings by the Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini.

The British Christmas cocktail called a Snowball mixes lemonade with which liqueur?

A Snowball tops advocaat, the Dutch egg-and-brandy liqueur, with lemonade and a squeeze of lime; in one account the liqueur began as a colonial avocado drink, with egg yolk standing in once it reached Europe.

Coquito, a creamy rum-and-coconut Christmas drink, comes from which part of the Caribbean?

Coquito, 'little coconut', is Puerto Rico's Christmas drink, and no two bottles agree: families hand down their own recipes, and New York's Museo del Barrio holds a yearly Coquito Masters contest.

In a German Feuerzangenbowle, what is set alight so it drips into the mulled wine below?

A rum-soaked sugarloaf sits on tongs over the bowl and is set alight; the rum must be at least 54% alcohol to keep it burning, and a 1944 film comedy named after the drink made it famous.

The drink name 'punch' is commonly traced to a Hindi word meaning which number?

Five, panch in Hindi, is the usual explanation, for a bowl of five ingredients: spirits, sugar, citrus juice, water and spice; East India Company men brought the drink home to England in the 1600s.

Which song did Gemini 6 astronauts play on harmonica from orbit in a 1965 Christmas prank?

'Jingle Bells' became one of the first songs broadcast from space after Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra reported a mysterious 'satellite' in polar orbit, then played the tune over the radio.

Whose 1994 Christmas song first topped the US Hot 100 only in December 2019?

Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You could not chart on the Hot 100 in 1994, because it was not sold as a single at the time; it finally reached No. 1 after a 25-year wait.

Wham!'s 'Last Christmas' was kept off the 1984 UK Christmas number one by which act?

Band Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' held the top spot, so George Michael, one of its singers, was beaten by a record he sang on; Wham! then gave their own single's royalties to the famine appeal.

The hide-a-pickle-ornament Christmas tradition is popularly but wrongly attributed to which country?

Germany barely knows it: in a 2016 YouGov poll, 91% of Germans asked had never heard of the pickle ornament, which probably began in the United States in the late 1800s.

Christmas Jumper Day in the UK and Ireland raises money for which charity?

Save the Children launched Christmas Jumper Day in 2012; schools and workplaces pull on a festive knit on a set day each December and give a couple of pounds to its work.

The nightly Las Posadas processions in the run-up to Christmas span a period representing what?

Mary's nine-month pregnancy is the usual reading of the nine nights, 16 to 24 December; each night a procession re-enacts Mary and Joseph asking for lodging, posada in Spanish.

Which star-shaped lantern lights Filipino homes and streets through the Christmas season?

The parol grew out of the lights carried in the nine nights of processions before Christmas; its star, for the Star of Bethlehem, became the standard shape only later.

Which French region ends its Christmas Eve supper with thirteen desserts?

Provence: the thirteen desserts are said to stand for Christ and the twelve apostles, and include the 'four beggars', nuts and dried fruit named for four orders of begging friars.

A Christingle, handed out at church services in Advent, is a candle pushed into which fruit?

The Christingle's orange stands for the world, its red ribbon for Christ's love and blood and its sweets for the fruits of creation; Moravian bishop Johannes de Watteville began it in 1747 with only a ribboned candle.