Christmas Around the World
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50 free Christmas Around the World trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Christmas is celebrated on every continent, and almost nowhere in quite the same way. The date, the dinner, the decorations and even the figure who brings the presents all change as you cross a border, which makes the holiday one of the richest subjects in trivia. This quiz travels through those differences: who delivers gifts in different parts of Europe, what ends up on the table from Scandinavia to East Asia, which folk customs look strangest to outsiders, and how churches in different traditions date the feast. The opening questions are the famous traditions many people have heard about. Later ones reach for regional festivals and local history. It suits a family quiz night, a classroom lesson on world cultures, or an office party that wants something beyond carols and films. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something, and the questions can be printed for use on paper.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A 1974 advertising campaign by an American fast-food chain turned which dish into a Christmas tradition in Japan?
Fried chicken
Fried chicken "party barrels" were first pushed in 1970 by the manager of Japan's first KFC, as a stand-in for an American roast dinner. The "Kentucky for Christmas" slogan then took the idea nationwide.
Q 02Which object do Catalan children feed for weeks, then beat with sticks until it 'poops' out Christmas presents?
A wooden log
A wooden log called the Tió de Nadal wears a painted smile and a red sock hat. Children keep it warm under a blanket, then sing a song ordering it to deliver as they strike.
Q 03In Icelandic folklore, the giant Yule Cat eats anyone who has not received which gift before Christmas?
New clothes
New clothes were the reward for farm workers who finished processing the autumn wool in time, so the monstrous cat was a threat aimed squarely at the idle.
Q 04Swedish television has aired a Disney special every Christmas Eve since 1960, known there by which character's name?
Donald Duck
Donald Duck is so much more popular than Mickey Mouse in Sweden that the special was retitled in his name. In 1997 just over half the country tuned in.
Q 05When does the Philippines begin its Christmas season, often described as the longest in the world?
In September
In September the "ber months" open, the four months whose names end in those letters. The season then rolls on past New Year to a feast in mid-January.
Q 06Dutch children are told that Sinterklaas arrives each November by steamboat from which country?
Spain
Spain may have entered the tale because the saint's relics were taken in 1087 to Bari, a city that later came under the Spanish crown. Another theory credits the mandarin oranges he hands out.
Q 07Which horned, chain-rattling figure of Alpine folklore joins Saint Nicholas on December 5 to punish naughty children?
Krampus
Krampus swats children with a bundle of birch rods. In Styria the twigs are painted gold and kept on display all year as a reminder.
Q 08Which country has sent London's Trafalgar Square a Christmas tree every year since 1947 as thanks for wartime help?
Norway
Norway's gift from the city of Oslo is typically a spruce 50 to 60 years old and more than 20 metres tall.
Q 09Which country's postal service gives Santa Claus his own postal code, H0H 0H0, and answers every letter?
Canada
Canada receives about a million Santa letters each Christmas and replies to each in the language it was written in. Montreal postal workers began answering them on their own in 1974.
Q 10Which vegetable do carvers in Oaxaca, Mexico, turn into elaborate sculptures for a competition held every December 23?
Radishes
Radishes grown oversized for the event are carved into whole scenes. The contest began with farmers shaping them to catch shoppers' eyes at the Christmas market.
Q 11In Italy, which broom-riding old woman fills children's stockings with sweets or coal on the night of January 5?
La Befana
La Befana's "coal" is usually rock candy dyed black, handed to every child on the theory that all of them have misbehaved at least once in the year.
Q 12Which giant straw animal, built each Advent in the Swedish city of Gävle, has repeatedly been burned down by arsonists?
A goat
A goat first went up in the town square in 1966, built by the fire department. Burning it is a crime that normally carries a three-month prison sentence.
Q 13In Ukraine, which unlikely decoration is hung on Christmas trees because of a folk tale about a poor widow?
Spider webs
Q 21Which gift-bringer delivers New Year presents to Russian children, helped by his granddaughter Snegurochka?
Ded Moroz
Ded Moroz took his modern form in Soviet times, when New Year replaced Christmas as the big winter holiday. In 1998 the town of Veliky Ustyug was declared his official home.
Q 22On December 13, a Swedish girl crowned with candles leads a procession carrying saffron buns to honour which saint?
Lucia
Saint Lucia is said to have worn a wreath of candles so that both hands were free to carry food to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs.
Q 23Iceland's yearly pre-Christmas 'flood' of new releases has made which item the country's favourite Christmas gift?
Books
Spider webs recall a tale in which a spider dressed a poor family's bare tree overnight, and the morning sun turned the threads to gold and silver. The story is one explanation offered for tinsel.
Q 14In the Welsh Christmas custom of Mari Lwyd, which eerie object is carried from door to door on a pole?
A horse's skull
A horse's skull draped in a white sheet and decked with ribbons leads the party, who must win a sung battle of wits with the householders before they are let in.
Q 15In which country is Rovaniemi, the city near the Arctic Circle promoted as the official hometown of Santa Claus?
Finland
Finland's Santa Claus Village stands there on the Arctic Circle line. One of its cabins was built in 1950 for a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Q 16Saint Nicholas, the real bishop behind Santa Claus, served in the ancient city of Myra, in which modern country?
Turkey
Turkey's town of Demre now stands beside the ruins of Myra. Sailors from Bari later stole the saint's relics from the city and carried them home across the sea.
Q 17'Mele Kalikimaka', the title of a 1949 song recorded by Bing Crosby, means 'Merry Christmas' in which language?
Hawaiian
Hawaiian has no R or S sounds and cannot end a syllable with a consonant, so the borrowed English greeting came out reshaped almost beyond recognition.
Q 18Which saint is credited with staging the first live nativity scene, in a cave near the Italian town of Greccio?
Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi staged it at Christmas 1223, inspired by a pilgrimage on which he had been shown the grotto where Jesus is said to have been born.
Q 19The Christmas Eve Midnight Mass known across Latin America as Misa de Gallo is named after which bird?
A rooster
A rooster names the service, which is also called the Shepherds' Mass. In the Philippines a version known as Simbang Gabi runs for nine days from December 16.
Q 20Which older calendar, still used by the Russian and Serbian Orthodox churches, puts Christmas Day on January 7?
Julian
The Julian calendar now runs 13 days behind the one most of the world uses, so its December 25 lands in January. Ukraine's Orthodox church moved its celebration to December 25 in 2023.
Books took over in the 1940s, when currency restrictions choked off imported gifts but paper stayed easier to bring in. A free catalogue of the year's titles still goes to every household.
Q 24What do Iceland's 13 Yule Lads leave in the shoes of children who have misbehaved, instead of a small gift?
A rotten potato
A rotten potato is the penalty. The brothers are each named for a favourite piece of mischief, among them Spoon Licker, Door Slammer and Sausage Swiper.
Q 25Which popular Christmas plant, native to Mexico, takes its English name from the first US minister to that country?
Poinsettia
Poinsettia honours Joel Roberts Poinsett, who is credited with introducing the plant to the United States in the 1820s. Europeans first described it only in 1834.
Q 26Which nine-night Mexican tradition has neighbours re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for a room at the inn?
Las Posadas
Las Posadas lasts as long as it does to stand for the months of Mary's pregnancy, and each evening's procession ends at a house chosen to play the inn.
Q 27The seven spikes on the traditional piñata broken at Mexican Christmas parties are said to stand for what?
The deadly sins
The deadly sins are what each swing of the stick is aimed at. The clay pot itself stands for evil, and the fruit and sweets inside for its temptations.
Q 28Which African country marks Christmas on January 7 with a hockey-like game that shares the festival's name, Genna?
Ethiopia
Ethiopia's stick-and-ball game is believed to have grown out of the way shepherds passed the night on which Jesus was born.
Q 29Which country renamed its December 26 public holiday from Boxing Day to the Day of Goodwill in 1994?
South Africa
South Africa chose the new name so that the spirit of Christmas would carry over into the following day.
Q 30In Ireland, which small bird was traditionally hunted on Saint Stephen's Day and paraded on a holly-decked pole?
A wren
A wren was the quarry because, in one story, it woke the guards as Saint Stephen tried to escape captivity. The hunt has died out, but groups of wrenboys still parade with a fake bird in towns such as Dingle.