50 free Christmas by the Numbers trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Every answer in this Christmas by the numbers quiz is a number, which makes it a perfect Christmas math trivia round for a classroom, a family table or an office party where somebody insists on keeping score. How many gifts does the true love send in total across the Twelve Days? How many reindeer pull the sleigh in the 1823 poem, and how many with Rudolph? How many ghosts visit Scrooge, and how many weeks did Dickens take to write the book? How many candles on an Advent wreath, doors on an Advent calendar, lights on the Rockefeller Center tree? The rest of the quiz runs through years and figures: when Silent Night was first sung, when Jingle Bells was written (for Thanksgiving), what year Home Alone came out and how much it made, how old Kevin McCallister is, when Rudolph was invented for Montgomery Ward, when the first Christmas card was printed and what it cost, the year the church settled on December 25, and how many copies of White Christmas have sold. Younger players can handle the counting questions; the dates are for the grown-ups. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the songs, films, traditions and history involved, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01If every gift in The Twelve Days of Christmas is repeated daily, how many gifts are sent in total?
364
One for every day of the year but one; PNC Bank has priced the whole haul every year since 1984 as the Christmas Price Index.
Q 02How many gold rings are given in The Twelve Days of Christmas?
5
The 1780 text says "gold"; "golden" caught on in North America after Mitch Miller's 1961 recording.
Q 03How many reindeer pull Santa's sleigh in the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas?
8
The poem introduced most of the modern Santa; Rudolph did not join the team until 1939.
Q 04In what year was A Visit from St. Nicholas first published?
1823
It appeared anonymously; Clement Clarke Moore claimed it in 1837, though some credit Henry Livingston Jr.
Q 05Rudolph is usually counted as which number reindeer on Santa's team?
9th
He is the youngest as well, and his nose leads the sleigh on foggy Christmas Eves.
Q 06In what year did Robert L. May create Rudolph for the Montgomery Ward department store?
1939
The store gave away 2.4 million copies of the booklet that first year; the song came in 1949 and the TV special in 1964.
Q 07How many copies of the Rudolph booklet did Montgomery Ward hand out in its first year?
2.4 million
May's brother-in-law Johnny Marks turned it into the song that Gene Autry took to number one in 1949.
Q 08How many spirits does Marley tell Scrooge will visit him in A Christmas Carol?
3
Past, Present and Yet to Come; Marley's own ghost makes four visitors in all.
Q 09In what year was A Christmas Carol published?
1843
It came out on 19 December and had sold out by Christmas Eve.
Q 10How many weeks did Dickens take to write A Christmas Carol?
6
He began in October 1843 and finished the last pages in early December, "at white heat".
Q 11Into how many "staves" is A Christmas Carol divided?
5
Dickens used the musical word instead of chapters to fit the "carol" of the title.
Q 12How many candles are on a traditional Advent wreath?
4
One is lit each Sunday of Advent; some wreaths add a fifth white Christ candle in the middle for Christmas Day.
Q 13How many little doors are on a standard Advent calendar?
24
The December 1 to 24 format became standard after 1945, though some calendars run to Christmas Day.
Q 14How many bulbs were on Edward Johnson's first electrically lit Christmas tree in 1882?
Q 21How many Home Alone sequels have been made?
5
Lost in New York in 1992, then three more nobody remembers, then Home Sweet Home Alone in 2021.
Q 22For how many years had the Grinch put up with Whoville's Christmas noise before he snapped?
53
His heart was two sizes too small; the book came out in 1957 and Boris Karloff voiced him in 1966.
Q 23How many sizes too small is the Grinch's heart?
2
It grows three sizes on Christmas morning when he hears the Whos singing anyway.
Q 24In what year did It's a Wonderful Life come out?
80
They were red, white and blue and the size of walnuts; the White House got its first electric tree in 1895.
Q 15About how many LED lights are hung on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree?
50,000
The Swarovski star on top has 70 spikes, three million crystals and weighs 900 pounds.
Q 16How much does the Swarovski star on top of the Rockefeller Center tree weigh?
900 pounds
Daniel Libeskind designed it in 2018 with three million crystals.
Q 17Since what year has the Rockefeller Center tree been an annual tradition?
1933
The tree is usually a Norway spruce between 69 and 100 feet tall, limited by the narrow streets around it.
Q 18How old is Kevin McCallister in Home Alone?
8
He defends the family's suburban Chicago house from the Wet Bandits after everyone flies to Paris without him.
Q 19In what year was Home Alone released?
1990
It was the second-highest-grossing film of the year and the top-grossing live-action comedy for two decades.
Q 20How much did Home Alone gross worldwide?
$476.7 million
Five sequels followed, ending with Home Sweet Home Alone in 2021.
1946
It flopped, then became a Christmas fixture after its copyright lapsed in 1974 and TV stations could show it free.
Q 25How many Academy Award nominations did It's a Wonderful Life receive?
5
It won none, and lost money at the box office.
Q 26How many Oscars did Miracle on 34th Street win?
3
Edmund Gwenn won for playing Kris Kringle, plus two writing awards.
Q 27In what year was Elf released?
2003
Will Ferrell's Buddy made $228.9 million on a $33 million budget.
Q 28In what year was Die Hard, the eternal "is it a Christmas film" debate, released?
1988
It grossed about $140 million and was the year's top action film, despite mixed first reviews.
Q 29What was The Polar Express's record-breaking budget, the highest ever for an animated film at the time?
$165-170 million
Tom Hanks played multiple roles via motion capture; it grossed $286 million initially.
Q 30In what year was Silent Night first performed, in Oberndorf, Austria?
1818
Franz Gruber wrote the melody for guitar on Christmas Eve, possibly because flooding had damaged the church organ.