Holiday Traditions
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This holiday trivia quiz has 95 free questions with answers covering the whole calendar and the whole world: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Eve; Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day, St Patrick's Day and the Fourth of July; and celebrations from Diwali, Holi and Nowruz to Day of the Dead, Songkran and Bonfire Night. Alongside the traditions themselves you will find the holiday films (Home Alone, Elf, It's a Wonderful Life), songs (Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Mariah), foods (candy canes, latkes, eggnog, fruitcake) and history (Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation, the Times Square ball, the Eggnog Riot at West Point). Use it for an office holiday party, a classroom warm-up, a pub quiz round or family game night: easy openers, mid-level questions most people will argue over, and a few genuinely hard ones to settle who knows the most. Every answer has been verified against a primary source or reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you answer. Play the full set for a score you can share, then try the Christmas, Halloween or Thanksgiving quizzes for a deeper dive.
30 of 95 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The modern custom of decorating an evergreen tree for Christmas began in the 16th century in which country?
Germany
Germany is where the fir 'paradise tree' of medieval plays became the decorated Christmas tree; an 1848 engraving of Queen Victoria and her German husband Albert around theirs spread the fashion in Britain.
Q 02What do the Yule Lads leave in the shoe of a child who has misbehaved?
A rotten potato
A rotten potato awaits naughty children and small gifts the good; the lads were once so frightening that a 1746 decree banned parents from using such tales to scare their children.
Q 03Eating twelve grapes at midnight on New Year's Eve, one per chime of the clock, is a tradition from which country?
Spain
Spain's grapes are swallowed to the chimes of the clock in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, broadcast nationwide, and the custom has spread across Latin America.
Q 04The egg-laying 'Oschter Haws', forerunner of the Easter Bunny, is said to have reached America with German settlers in which colony?
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's German settlers told their children that the hare laid coloured eggs for the well-behaved, so before Easter the children set out their caps and bonnets as nests for it.
Q 05Diwali, often called the Festival of Lights, primarily symbolizes the triumph of what?
Good over evil
Good over evil is Diwali's theme: in northern India the lights recall the people of Ayodhya welcoming Rama home after he defeated the demon king Ravana.
Q 06Kwanzaa is a celebration based on seven core principles, collectively known by what Swahili term?
Nguzo Saba
Nguzo Saba, 'seven principles', runs from Umoja, unity, on the first night to Imani, faith, on the last; one more candle is lit for each principle as the week goes on.
Q 07Which Jewish holiday features a Seder meal retelling the Exodus from Egypt?
Passover
Passover's Seder retells the escape from slavery; matzah is unleavened because the Israelites left too fast for bread to rise, and the bitter herbs recall the bitterness of bondage.
Q 08Which traditional English Christmas punch of hot spiced ale or cider takes its name from a toast meaning 'be in good health'?
Wassail
Wassail began as a toast that was answered with 'drinkhail'; in England's cider counties wassailers still go from orchard to orchard and sing to the apple trees to bless the next crop.
Q 09Kissing under the mistletoe is first noted as popular among which group in late-18th-century England?
Servants
Servants in late-18th-century England were the first noted for it; in one version of the custom each kiss cost the sprig a berry, and the kissing had to stop once the berries ran out.
Q 10What is traditionally placed at the very top of a Christmas tree?
A star
A star, recalling the Star of Bethlehem that the Wise Men followed, is the classic topper; its usual rival is an angel from the Nativity story.
Q 11Which country sends London a Christmas tree for Trafalgar Square each year in thanks for wartime support?
Norway
Norway's gift thanks Britain for its help during the Second World War; the spruce is felled each November at a ceremony with the mayors of Oslo and Westminster, then shipped across the North Sea.
Q 12How many numbered doors or windows do most standard Advent calendars feature?
24
Standard Advent calendars have 24 doors, one for each day from 1 to 24 December; because Advent's first Sunday moves between 27 November and 3 December, reusable calendars simply start on 1 December.
Q 13The thirteen Yule Lads, with names like Spoon-Licker and Door-Slammer, visit children before Christmas in which country?
Iceland
Q 21Green bean casserole, a Thanksgiving staple, was created in 1955 in the test kitchen of which soup company?
Campbell's
Campbell's home economist Dorcas Reilly devised it for a newspaper feature that wanted a quick dish from ingredients most households kept on hand, among them the firm's cream of mushroom soup.
Q 22Which Easter activity did Florida's Cypress Gardens stage with a record 501,000 eggs in 2007?
Egg hunt
An Easter egg hunt: Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Florida, hid 501,000 eggs for 9,753 children on 1 April 2007, the Guinness record for the largest hunt.
Q 23In Scottish Hogmanay first-footing, which visitor is preferred as the first across the threshold after midnight?
A tall, dark-haired man
Iceland's thirteen Yule Lads are the sons of the child-eating ogress Grýla; they come down from the mountains one a night from 12 December, each named for his favourite prank.
Q 14What sweet treat do children in the United States commonly leave out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve?
Cookies
Cookies and a glass of milk are the classic Christmas Eve offering for Santa in the United States; the half-eaten plate found the next morning serves as 'evidence' of his visit.
Q 15What nine-branched candelabrum is lit during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah?
Menorah
The Hanukkah menorah, or hanukkiah, has nine branches: eight for the nights plus the shamash, the helper candle that lights the rest. The ancient Temple's menorah had seven.
Q 16Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by activist Maulana Karenga in the aftermath of which event?
The Watts riots
The Watts riots of 1965 shook Los Angeles, and Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa the following year as a way to bring African Americans together around a shared heritage.
Q 17What traditional game is played with a four-sided spinning top during Hanukkah?
Dreidel
The dreidel is the Hanukkah spinning top; each of its four Hebrew letters fixes the outcome of a spin—nothing, all, half, or put in—in a game played for coins or chocolate gelt.
Q 18In what season does Diwali, the Festival of Lights, typically occur?
Autumn
Diwali falls in autumn, between mid-October and mid-November, because its date shifts with the Hindu lunisolar calendar; the celebrations run for five days.
Q 19What type of lamp is commonly lit as part of Diwali celebrations?
Diya
Diyas, small clay lamps filled with oil, are set out in rows on the new-moon night of Diwali to invite Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, into the home.
Q 20New Year's resolutions are usually traced to which ancient people, who made promises to their gods each new year?
The Babylonians
The Babylonians pledged at Akitu, their spring new-year festival, to repay debts and return borrowed objects; the Romans later made similar vows to Janus, the god January is named for.
A tall, dark-haired man brings the best luck, arriving with gifts such as coal, shortbread, salt or whisky; one theory dates the preference to Viking times, when a blond stranger at the door meant trouble.
Q 24Traditionally, what does finishing a bowl of tteokguk on Korea's Lunar New Year do?
Makes the eater a year older
It makes the eater a year older, which is why Koreans ask 'how many bowls of tteokguk have you eaten?' to ask someone's age; the white rice cakes stand for a clean start.
Q 25At Japan's Setsubun festival each February, families shout 'Demons out, fortune in' while throwing what at a relative in an ogre mask?
Roasted soybeans
Roasted soybeans are hurled in a rite called mamemaki; afterwards you eat one bean for every year of your age, and in some homes one more for luck.
Q 26In Mexico, whoever finds the figurine in the Rosca de Reyes must host a party on which feast day?
Candlemas, 2 February
Candlemas, 2 February, known as Día de la Candelaria, is when whoever found the figurine gathers everyone again for tamales; the day closes Mexico's long Christmas season.
Q 27Colombia's Día de las Velitas on 7 December falls on the eve of which feast?
Immaculate Conception
8 December is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a public holiday in Colombia; the candle custom dates from 1854, when Pope Pius IX defined the doctrine as dogma and Colombians lit candles to celebrate.
Q 28What event does Ethiopia's Timkat festival, held at pools and rivers each January, celebrate?
The baptism of Jesus
The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan is marked by carrying each church's tabot, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, to a pool or river, where the water is blessed and sprinkled on the crowd.
Q 29The girl leading Scandinavia's Saint Lucy's Day procession wears a white robe and what else?
A crown of lit candles
A crown of lit candles tops the Lucia's white robe; legend says Lucy wore candles on her head to keep both hands free while carrying food to Christians hiding in Rome's catacombs. Stockholm crowned its first newspaper Lucia in 1927.
Q 30Much of Latin America plays April Fools-style pranks on 28 December, the feast of whom?
The Holy Innocents
The Holy Innocents are the children killed on King Herod's orders; in Spanish, whoever falls for a prank on their feast is teased as an 'inocente'.