Catholic Christmas Trivia
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90 free Catholic Christmas trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
For Catholics, Christmas is not one day but a season, bracketed by four weeks of Advent on one side and the Octave, Epiphany and Candlemas on the other. This Catholic Christmas trivia quiz walks through all of it: the violet and rose candles of the Advent wreath, Gaudete Sunday, the O Antiphons behind 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel', the three Masses of Christmas Day, St Francis's first crib at Greccio, the feasts of St Stephen, the Holy Innocents and Mary Mother of God, and the Magi's chalk on the door at Epiphany. It also covers Catholic Christmas customs around the world, from Las Posadas and Simbang Gabi to the Befana, plus the December Marian feasts of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe, Silent Night's priest-lyricist and the Vatican's tree and crib. Questions range from easy ones any parish CCD class could answer to expert-level liturgical history, so it works for a parish social, a Catholic school quiz or family game night. Every answer was checked against liturgical references and encyclopaedic sources before publishing, and each question carries a citation.
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Q 01What is the usual liturgical colour for Advent in the Western Church?
Violet
Violet: Pope Innocent III once named black as Advent's colour, but violet had taken over by the end of the 13th century.
Q 02On which Sunday of Advent may rose vestments be worn and the rose candle lit?
The third
The third: rose is worn then to signal that Christmas is now near.
Q 03What does 'Gaudete', the Latin name of a Sunday in Advent, mean?
Rejoice
It is the first word of that day's introit, from Philippians: 'Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.'
Q 04Advent was once also called a 'Lent' named after which saint, whose feast falls on 11 November?
Martin of Tours
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.
Q 05The Advent wreath, common in Catholic homes, began as a tradition in which denomination?
Lutheran
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.
Q 06The O Antiphons, sung at Vespers from 17 to 23 December, are best known in English as which hymn?
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
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.
Q 07The O Antiphons are sung during which canticle at Vespers?
The Magnificat
The Magnificat: after the Second Vatican Council's reforms, the same antiphons also became the Alleluia verses at Mass on those days.
Q 08What is the earliest known record of Christmas being celebrated on 25 December?
The Chronograph of 354
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.
Q 09Which fourth-century pilgrim described Jerusalem's bishop going by night to Bethlehem for the feast of Christ's birth?
Egeria
Egeria: in her day Jerusalem still celebrated Christ's birth within the feast she called Epiphany.
Q 10Under Rome's ancient three-Mass custom, which basilica hosted the Christmas midnight Mass?
Santa Maria Maggiore
Santa Maria Maggiore: there the Mass was said at a relic believed to be Christ's crib, echoing Jerusalem's midnight Mass in Bethlehem.
Q 11What is the official Latin name of what most Catholics call Midnight Mass?
Missa in nocte
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.
Q 12At which times are the three Christmas Masses traditionally said?
Night, dawn, day
Night, dawn, day: Thomas Aquinas explained the three Masses by Christ's threefold birth, from eternity, in time and in the soul.
Q 13Which saint staged the first live nativity scene, at Greccio in 1223?
Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi: Greccio's caves reminded him of the countryside around Bethlehem, which he had seen on a visit to the Holy Land.
Q 21In Italian folklore, who delivers gifts to children on the night of 5 January?
The Befana
The Befana: her name is thought to come from Epifania, the Italian for Epiphany, and naughty children get lumps of coal instead of sweets.
Q 22What is the ring-shaped cake eaten in Mexico at Epiphany called?
Rosca de Reyes
Rosca de Reyes: in Mexico, whoever finds the little doll baked inside must throw a party later on.
Q 23Which ruler did Pope Leo III crown emperor on Christmas Day in the year 800?
Charlemagne
Charlemagne: the crowning revived the title of emperor in the West, which had lapsed for over 300 years.
Q 14Which two animals are traditionally shown at the manger, though neither appears in the Gospel accounts?
An ox and a donkey
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.
Q 15When does Christmastide begin in the Catholic liturgical calendar?
At sunset on Christmas Eve
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.
Q 16Whose feast, honouring the first Christian martyr, falls on 26 December?
Saint Stephen
Saint Stephen: as he was stoned to death, his final words were a prayer that his killers be forgiven.
Q 17The Feast of the Holy Innocents on 28 December commemorates children killed on whose orders?
Herod the Great
Herod the Great: yet the historian Josephus, who recorded many of Herod's cruelties, never mentions the massacre.
Q 18What solemnity does the Catholic Church celebrate on 1 January, the Octave Day of Christmas?
Mary, Mother of God
Mary, Mother of God: traditional calendars instead keep 1 January as the feast of Christ's Circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth.
Q 19What does the papal blessing 'Urbi et Orbi', given at Christmas, literally mean?
To the city and to the world
To the city and to the world: before Rome was occupied, popes gave this blessing from the balconies of several of its basilicas.
Q 20Epiphany is traditionally celebrated on which date in January?
The 6th
The 6th: yet a bishops' conference may move Epiphany to the Sunday between 2 and 8 January instead.
Q 24The Filipino dawn Masses of Simbang Gabi began in 1669 as a compromise for whom?
Farmers who worked before sunrise
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.
Q 25What is the Christmas Eve Mass called at the end of Simbang Gabi?
Misa de Gallo
Misa de Gallo: after the Simbang Gabi Masses, churchgoers traditionally buy rice cakes such as bibingka and puto bumbong from stalls outside.
Q 26Which pope defined the Immaculate Conception as dogma in 1854?
Pius IX
Pius IX: four years later at Lourdes, Bernadette Soubirous said the Lady who appeared to her called herself 'the Immaculate Conception'.
Q 27To whom did Our Lady of Guadalupe appear in December 1531?
Juan Diego
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.
Q 28What flowers did the visionary find blooming on the barren hill of Tepeyac in December?
Castile roses
Castile roses: when he opened his cloak before the bishop, the flowers fell out and the Virgin's image appeared on the cloth.
Q 29Saint Nicholas, whose feast falls on 6 December, was bishop of which city?
Myra
Myra: in 1087 Italian merchants carried off his body to Bari, where his shrine still stands.
Q 30'Silent Night' was first sung in 1818 at Oberndorf, near which Austrian city?
Salzburg
Salzburg: travelling folk-singing families from Austria's Zillertal later carried the carol across Europe and the world.