Christmas Monsters
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40 free Christmas Monsters trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Christmas has always had a dark side. Long before films put fangs on the festive season, families in the Alps, Iceland and beyond told children that winter nights belonged to horned devils, hungry trolls and uninvited visitors who knew exactly who had misbehaved. Krampus is the most famous of them, but he has plenty of company. This quiz covers the folklore first: Krampus and the other stern companions of St Nicholas, the Yule Lads and the Yule Cat, Perchta, the Mari Lwyd and the goblins said to surface during the Twelve Days of Christmas. Then it turns to the screen, with questions on the Grinch, Gremlins, The Nightmare Before Christmas, the Rudolph TV special and a few festive horror films. It is written for anyone who likes their holidays with a shiver: quiz hosts planning a spooky December round, folklore fans, and families who rewatch the scary seasonal films every year. Every answer comes with a short explanation worth reading aloud.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Iceland's monstrous Yule Cat is said to eat anyone who fails to receive which gift before Christmas Eve?
New clothes
New clothes were the reward for farm workers who finished processing the autumn wool before the holiday, so the giant cat doubled as a threat against slacking.
Q 02Which country's government issued 1950s pamphlets titled Krampus Is an Evil Man to protect frightened children?
Austria
Austria had already seen the Krampus tradition banned outright in the 1930s under the Dollfuss regime, yet the masked devil's street runs came roaring back by the end of the century.
Q 03Which veteran horror film star narrated the 1966 animated TV special about the Grinch and also voiced the Grinch?
Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff, the screen's most famous Frankenstein's monster, could not sing, so the special's theme song was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft instead.
Q 04In the 1984 film Gremlins, a mogwai spawns new creatures when it comes into contact with which everyday substance?
Water
Water is one of three things a mogwai's owner must avoid, along with bright light and late-night feeding; one spilled glass produces five new creatures.
Q 05What do Iceland's thirteen Yule Lads leave in the windowsill shoes of children who have been disobedient?
A rotten potato
A rotten potato is the booby prize; well-behaved children wake to a small gift instead, one from each prankster on the thirteen nights before Christmas.
Q 06Which fur-clad Pennsylvania Dutch gift-bringer does Dwight Schrute dress up as in The Office episode Dwight Christmas?
Belsnickel
Belsnickel carries a switch for naughty children and pockets of sweets and nuts for good ones, a custom German settlers brought with them from the Palatinate.
Q 07The Mari Lwyd, a ribbon-decked midwinter visitor carried house to house on a pole, is made from which animal's skull?
A horse
A horse skull is draped in a white sheet that hides its carrier, and once let indoors the creature runs about neighing and snapping its jaws at the household.
Q 08Which country's children wait for La Befana, an old witch on a broomstick who leaves coal for the naughty?
Italy
Italy's Befana arrives on the night of 5 January, the eve of Epiphany, bringing sweets and toys to well-behaved children much as Santa Claus does elsewhere.
Q 09Which one-word nickname does the Abominable Snow Monster of the North go by in the 1964 Rudolph TV special?
Bumble
Bumble ends the special tamed and trimming the Christmas tree, after his knack for bouncing saves Yukon Cornelius in their fall from a cliff.
Q 10Which comedian plays the green-furred recluse in Ron Howard's 2000 live-action film How the Grinch Stole Christmas?
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey's transformation helped the film win the Academy Award for Best Makeup, and it became the highest-grossing film of 2000 in the United States.
Q 11Which long-suffering dog pulls the Grinch's sleigh when he sets out disguised as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve?
Max
Max is the Grinch's only companion on the mountain; the 2000 live-action film cast six mixed-breed dogs rescued from shelters to share the part.
Q 12Which town does the Grinch raid on Christmas Eve after enduring its noisy festivities for 53 years?
Whoville
Whoville loses its gifts and decorations overnight, yet its residents wake up singing anyway, which is what makes the Grinch's small heart grow three sizes.
Q 13Which cuddly mogwai does Billy Peltzer receive from his inventor father as a Christmas present in Gremlins?
Gizmo
Gizmo came from a Chinatown antique shop whose owner refused to sell him; the shopkeeper's grandson made the deal in secret.
Q 21Which country produced Rare Exports, a 2010 horror comedy in which a horned Santa Claus is found frozen in ice?
Finland
Finland's Rare Exports grew out of two earlier short films about a company that traps wild Santas, trains them and ships them around the world.
Q 22In the Czech Republic, St Nicholas makes his rounds flanked by a devil known as the čert and which other figure?
An angel
An angel walks at the saint's other side as a counterweight to the menacing devil, a trio that also turns up in Slovenia, Slovakia and Poland.
Q 23Which Icelandic singer recorded a song about the man-eating Yule Cat for a 1987 album of Christmas music?
Björk
Björk sang it on a collection of composer Ingibjörg Þorbergs's festive songs, one of which sets a 1932 poem about the beast to music.
Q 14Which ghost dog with a glowing jack-o'-lantern nose belongs to Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas?
Zero
Zero floats along behind his master with a nose bright enough to serve as a lamp, and later starred in his own manga sequel, Zero's Journey.
Q 15Which misfit elf, an aspiring dentist, pulls out the Abominable Snow Monster's teeth in the 1964 Rudolph TV special?
Hermey
Hermey quits Santa's workshop to follow his dream, and gets his chance once the monster has been knocked out cold by a falling boulder.
Q 16Which ghost visits Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, bound in heavy chains and money boxes, seven years after dying?
Jacob Marley
Jacob Marley, Scrooge's former business partner, warns that the miser is forging a chain of his own and that three more spirits are on their way.
Q 17Which dish do Scandinavian families leave out on Christmas Eve to keep the household spirit called the nisse content?
Porridge
Porridge has to be served just right: in one often-told tale, a nisse who found no butter on top flew into a rage and killed the farm's cow.
Q 18Krampus traditionally swats badly behaved children with a bundle of branches cut from which tree?
Birch
Birch rods are sometimes painted gold and left with families in Styria, to hang in the house all year as a reminder of the horned visitor.
Q 19Which animal is named in Joulupukki, the Nordic gift-bringer whose name recalls rowdy costumed midwinter visitors?
Goat
Goat is the literal meaning of pukki: the name recalls men in costume who once went rowdily from village to village, performing in return for leftover festive food.
Q 20Which country's folklore warns of the kallikantzaroi, goblins who surface during the Twelve Days of Christmas?
Greece
Greece's goblins come above ground from 25 December until Epiphany on 6 January, and spend those days playing pranks on any mortals they meet.
Q 24Which child-eating ogress of Icelandic folklore is the mother of the thirteen mischievous Yule Lads?
Grýla
Grýla hunts naughty children at Christmas and carries them home in a giant sack for her stew, though 13th-century texts name her with no link to the season.
Q 25Kertasníkir, the last of Iceland's Yule Lads to arrive, follows children on Christmas Eve hoping to steal what?
Candles
Candles were worth stealing because they were made of tallow, which meant the thief could eat them as well as burn them.
Q 26Iceland's Yule Lad Hurðaskellir, who arrives on 18 December, is named for which way of waking the household at night?
Slamming doors
Slamming doors is his whole act; each of the brothers is named for a signature nuisance, from licking spoons to peeping through windows.
Q 27Which drink is customarily offered to the costumed devils who storm through Alpine towns on a Krampus run?
Schnapps
Schnapps here means a strong distilled fruit brandy; the runs can turn rough, and in 2013 eight people in East Tyrol were hospitalised, mostly with broken bones.
Q 28Since the 1800s, Europeans have exchanged which seasonal items decorated with pictures of Krampus?
Greeting cards
Greeting cards showed him looming over children with one human foot and one cloven hoof, though modern versions have turned him cuter and more Cupid-like.
Q 29Which Australian actress heads the ensemble cast of the 2015 Christmas horror comedy Krampus alongside Adam Scott?
Toni Collette
Toni Collette joined the film in March 2015; its director, Michael Dougherty, said he had always wanted to make a scary Christmas movie.
Q 30Which stop-motion specialist directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, although Tim Burton's name sits above the title?
Henry Selick
Henry Selick turned a three-page poem Burton wrote in 1982 into the feature film; Burton had first pictured it as a TV special narrated by Vincent Price.