Advent
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50 free Advent trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Advent is the stretch of the church calendar that leads up to Christmas, and it has gathered centuries of customs along the way. Candles are lit week by week, little doors are opened day by day, and the readings at Mass turn to prophets, angels and a preacher in the wilderness. This quiz covers the season from every side: the wreath and the calendar, the colors and Sundays of the Catholic liturgy, the Bible passages heard in church, the saints' days that fall in December, and the hymns, foods and folk traditions that different countries have made their own. It is written for families, parish groups, religion classes and youth nights, with a mix of easy questions for children and harder ones for teens and adults. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play it straight through or print it as a worksheet.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The first modern Advent wreath, made in 1839 to help children count the days, was built on which object?
A cartwheel
A cartwheel from a mission school for poor children held a small candle for every weekday and a large one for each Sunday. Only the Sunday candles survive on wreaths today.
Q 02Which US president's grandson was pictured with an Advent calendar in Newsweek, sending American demand soaring?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower was in his first year in office when the magazine ran the picture in December 1953. The next year's export calendar had the White House at its center, ringed by cowboys.
Q 03Which giant straw animal, raised in the Swedish city of Gävle at the start of Advent, do arsonists keep burning down?
A goat
A goat built of straw has stood in Gävle's Castle Square each winter since 1966. It has been burned again and again, despite security measures and a fire station close by.
Q 04Which saint is credited with staging the first live Christmas crib scene, in a cave at Greccio, Italy, in 1223?
Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi's scene was acted out rather than carved. The tiny chapel where it is said to have taken place still stands in Greccio.
Q 05Which saint's feast on December 6 sees children in many countries leave out shoes to be filled with sweets overnight?
Nicholas
Saint Nicholas, a bishop of Myra, is said to have thrown money through a poor family's window, where it landed in shoes drying by the fire.
Q 06In which country did Lutheran families first count the days to Christmas with what became the Advent calendar?
Germany
Germany's Lutherans were using Advent calendars by the 1800s, and the custom has since spread to other churches. Many printed versions carry a Bible verse on each little door.
Q 07Which angel, who also appears to the prophet Daniel, tells Mary in Luke's Gospel that she will bear a son?
Gabriel
Gabriel's visit to Mary is known as the Annunciation. Its feast is usually kept on March 25, nine months before Christmas Day.
Q 08Which town does the Old Testament prophet Micah name as the birthplace of a future ruler of Israel?
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is 'little among the thousands of Judah' in Micah's words. In Matthew's Gospel the chief priests quote the prophecy to King Herod when the wise men come asking.
Q 09The season of Advent takes its name from the Latin word adventus, which has what meaning in English?
Coming
Coming is the sense of adventus, and the season looks ahead to two of them: the birth of Jesus and his promised return at the end of time.
Q 10Which saint's day on December 13 is marked in Sweden by girls in white gowns wearing crowns of candles?
Lucy
Saint Lucy is said to have worn a wreath of candles to light her way as she carried food to Christians in hiding. Her name comes from the Latin word for light.
Q 11Which color do Catholic priests wear on most Sundays of Advent, the same shade used throughout Lent?
Violet
Violet marks both seasons as times of preparation. It has been the usual Advent color in Western churches since about the 13th century, when one pope argued for black.
Q 12What Latin name does the third Sunday of Advent take from the first word of its entrance chant at Mass?
Gaudete
Gaudete, Latin for 'rejoice', opens a line from Paul's letter to the Philippians. The day gives a break about midway through an otherwise penitential season.
Q 13What color is the third candle lit on a Catholic Advent wreath, the only one that differs from the rest?
Rose
Rose vestments may be worn at Mass that day too, and the day was once nicknamed Rose Sunday. The shade returns once more in the middle of Lent.
Q 21Which title of Mary, honored on December 12, recalls her reported appearances to Juan Diego near Mexico City in 1531?
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe is venerated through an image on a cloak that hangs in a Mexico City basilica. Her feast day always falls within Advent.
Q 22Which nine-night Mexican procession re-enacts Mary and Joseph's search for a room, ending each evening with a piñata?
Las Posadas
Las Posadas means 'the inns'. Players dressed as the couple go to a different house each night, sing to ask for shelter and are welcomed in to pray and feast.
Q 23Which horned figure of Alpine folklore roams the streets on the night of December 5 to punish badly behaved children?
Krampus
Q 14What begins for Western churches on the First Sunday of Advent, weeks before the calendar turns on January 1?
The liturgical year
The liturgical year starts over that day, so the Church's new year arrives about a month early. Eastern Orthodox churches begin theirs on September 1 instead.
Q 15Which hymn of praise is left out of Sunday Mass during Advent so that it returns with fresh force at Christmas?
The Gloria
The Gloria opens with the song the angels sing to the shepherds in Luke's Gospel, 'Glory to God in the highest', so Christmas night is when it comes back.
Q 16Which Old Testament prophet's line about a virgin bearing a son is quoted in Matthew's account of Jesus's birth?
Isaiah
Isaiah was so prized by Christians that his book has been called 'the Fifth Gospel'. His words also run through the libretto of Handel's Messiah.
Q 17Which preacher, said to have lived on locusts and wild honey, is the focus of the Gospels on two Advent Sundays?
John the Baptist
John the Baptist calls on the crowds to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. Luke's Gospel makes him a relative of Jesus, born about six months before him.
Q 18Which relative does the pregnant Mary hurry to visit in Luke's Gospel, a meeting Christians call the Visitation?
Elizabeth
Elizabeth, long childless and by then elderly, was six months pregnant herself. Luke says her baby leaped in her womb at the sound of Mary's greeting.
Q 19Which name, Hebrew for 'God with us', does Matthew's Gospel give to the child Mary is to bear?
Emmanuel
Emmanuel appears as Matthew explains Joseph's dream, in which an angel tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife.
Q 20Which apostle's feast on November 30 fixes the start of Advent, which opens on the Sunday nearest to it?
Saint Andrew
Saint Andrew, the fisherman brother of Peter, has his feast on a date that keeps the first day of Advent between November 27 and December 3.
Krampus carries a bundle of birch branches to swat children with, while the saint he escorts rewards the well-behaved ones with small gifts.
Q 24In which country do Catholics rise before dawn for Simbang Gabi, nine days of Masses leading up to Christmas?
The Philippines
The Philippines took up the early hour in the Spanish colonial era, so that farmers could hear Mass and still reach the fields by sunrise.
Q 25The Jesse Tree, hung through Advent with symbols of Jesus's ancestors, is named for the father of which king?
David
David heads a royal line that medieval artists drew as a tree rising from the sleeping Jesse. It became a favorite subject for stained-glass windows.
Q 26Which feast on December 8, a holy day for Catholics in Advent, honors Mary as patroness of the United States?
Immaculate Conception
Immaculate Conception refers to Mary's own beginning free from original sin, not to that of Jesus. The feast falls nine months before her birthday on September 8.
Q 27In a Christingle, lit by children at Advent services, a candle is pushed into which fruit to represent the world?
An orange
An orange carries a red ribbon and sweets or dried fruit as well as the candle. The custom began in the Moravian Church in the 1700s as just a candle wrapped in ribbon.
Q 28Which Catholic feast, created by Pope Pius XI in 1925, now falls on the final Sunday before Advent begins?
Christ the King
Christ the King was Pius XI's answer to rising secularism and extreme nationalism. It was first kept on the last Sunday of October, until Pope Paul VI moved it to its present place.
Q 29Which song of praise by Mary in Luke's Gospel is sung or recited every evening at vespers in Catholic churches?
The Magnificat
The Magnificat takes its name from the first word of its Latin text, 'My soul magnifies the Lord'. Composers from the Renaissance onward, Monteverdi among them, have set it to music.
Q 30What are the seven chants sung at vespers from December 17 to 23 called, each hailing the Messiah by a different title?
The O Antiphons
The O Antiphons each open with the word 'O', as in 'O Wisdom'. Read from last to first, the initials of their Latin titles appear to spell 'ero cras', meaning 'tomorrow I will be there'.