Spanish Christmas Trivia
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48 free Spanish Christmas trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Spanish Christmas trivia quiz covers how Spain celebrates from Nochebuena on 24 December through Epiphany on 6 January: the big family dinner, Misa de Gallo, the Christmas lottery and its singing schoolchildren, Día de los Santos Inocentes, the Twelve Grapes at Puerta del Sol, the Cabalgata de Reyes and the roscón with a bean baked inside. It also covers the regional characters that make Spain unusual, from Catalonia's Caga Tió and the caganer to the Basque Country's Olentzero. There are questions on food too, including turrón from Jijona, Toledo marzipan and polvorones from Andalusia, plus villancicos and the belén tradition. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has spent a December in Spain, a third need a closer knowledge of the customs, and the rest reward people who know the history behind them, such as the year the lottery started and where the oldest Three Kings parade was held. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the traditions before publishing, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the Spanish name for Christmas Eve, the night of the big family dinner?
Nochebuena
Nochebuena, literally 'Good Night', outranks Christmas Day in most of Spain: the family feast runs late into the night of the 24th, and the 25th is a much calmer day.
Q 02Which feast marks the traditional end of the Spanish Christmas season?
Epiphany
Epiphany, 6 January, closes Spain's Christmas season and is its big gift day: children wake to their main presents that morning, and school starts again right afterwards.
Q 03What is the Spanish word for the nativity scene displayed in homes, schools and shops?
Belén
Belén is Spanish for Bethlehem, and the scene borrows the town's name: many families build the whole village in miniature each December, not only the stable.
Q 04Which saint's day is celebrated in Catalonia on 26 December with another family gathering?
Stephen
Saint Stephen's Day, Sant Esteve in Catalan, falls on 26 December and gives Catalans a second day of feasting, traditionally on canelons made from Christmas leftovers.
Q 05Which king completes the trio with Melchior and Caspar in Spain's Three Kings parades?
Balthazar
Balthazar completes the trio: Spanish children write a wish letter to their favourite king, or to all three, and the kings' pages collect the last letters during the parade.
Q 06What is the Spanish name for New Year's Eve?
Nochevieja
Nochevieja ('Old Night') is Spanish for New Year's Eve, 31 December; after the family feast, young people head out to a cotillón in the bars and dance until morning.
Q 07What is traditionally eaten for breakfast after a Spanish New Year's Eve party?
Churros with chocolate
Churros with chocolate top off the night: the party in bars and clubs runs until morning, so the fried dough and hot chocolate come as breakfast before bed.
Q 08What do Spanish children put out on the night of 5 January to receive presents from the Three Wise Men?
Their shoes
They put out their shoes on the night of 5 January, along with sweets for the Kings and water for the camels.
Q 09What is the Spanish name for the Three Kings parade held on the evening of 5 January?
Cabalgata de Reyes
The Cabalgata de Reyes fills Spanish towns on 5 January: the Kings ride through on floats while their pages collect children's last letters and throw sweets into the crowd.
Q 10What do Spain's Three Kings traditionally leave for children who have misbehaved?
Coal
Coal is the threat, but these days it is usually carbón dulce: lumps of black sugar candy, so the punishment can be eaten.
Q 11By what name do Spanish children know Santa Claus, a newcomer beside the Three Kings?
Papá Noel
Papá Noel is a newcomer: presents traditionally waited for the Kings on 6 January, so many Spanish children now get a small gift at Christmas and the main ones twelve days later.
Q 12What is the nickname of the first prize in the Spanish Christmas Lottery?
El Gordo
El Gordo, 'the fat one', goes to every ticket with the winning number, and one shop often sells them all, so a whole village can wake up rich, as Grañén, population 2,000, did in 2011.
Q 13Who sings out the winning numbers of the Spanish Christmas Lottery draw?
Pupils of the San Ildefonso school
Q 21Which Madrid square's clock marks the twelve strokes of the New Year on national television?
Puerta del Sol
The Puerta del Sol clock first sounds four double chimes, the cuartos, as a warning, and every year some viewers mistake them for midnight and start their countdown too soon.
Q 22Mantecados, Spain's crumbly Christmas shortbreads, take their name from 'manteca', which fat?
Pork lard
Pork lard is the 'manteca' in mantecados. A 19th-century woman known as La Colchona made hers with lard left over from pig slaughters, and drove out the moisture so they kept long enough for her husband, a carrier, to sell on his route.
Q 23What is hidden inside a Spanish roscón de reyes that obliges the finder to pay for the cake?
A dried bean
Pupils of the San Ildefonso school in Madrid work in pairs: one sings each number, the other its prize, and because every prize is sung aloud the draw runs for hours.
Q 14Since 2012, which Madrid venue has hosted the Spanish Christmas Lottery draw?
The Teatro Real opera house
The Teatro Real opera house took over in 2012: the crowds who come to watch had outgrown the lottery's own hall, home of the draw for over 40 years, and a congress centre filled in for two years.
Q 15Which port city, seat of Spain's parliament in 1812, hosted the first Christmas lottery draw that year?
Cádiz
Cádiz is where the lottery was approved in 1811, to bring money into a treasury drained by the war against Napoleon; its first draw at Christmas time followed on 18 December 1812.
Q 16What is a décimo in the Spanish Christmas Lottery?
A one-tenth share of a ticket
A décimo is a one-tenth share of a ticket: a full billete costs €200, so it is sold as a perforated sheet of ten €20 décimos.
Q 17Which drink, made mostly in Catalonia, is Spain's usual choice for raising a glass at Christmas?
Cava
Cava, Spain's answer to champagne, is poured at Christmas and again at midnight on New Year's Eve, though plenty of households open cider instead.
Q 18How do the Three Kings traditionally arrive in Barcelona for the 5 January parade?
By boat
By boat: since the 1960s the Kings have sailed into Barcelona's port, where the mayor hands them the keys to the city, said to open every home for one night.
Q 19What do Spaniards eat with each of the twelve midnight bell strikes on New Year's Eve?
Grapes
Grapes, one per chime: each stands for a month of the year ahead. Well-off Madrileños ate them with champagne first, and a bumper 1909 harvest in Alicante helped make it everyone's custom.
Q 20Which starter typically opens the Spanish Christmas Eve feast before the roast lamb?
Prawns
Prawns open the feast, and on many tables the main course is seafood too, with cod or shellfish in place of the lamb.
A dried bean lands its finder with the bill, and often with buying next year's cake too; in older versions of the custom the bean made its finder king of the party instead.
Q 24What is the roscón de reyes dough flavoured with in Spain?
Orange blossom water
Orange blossom water (agua de azahar) scents the brioche-like dough; Spaniards buy the ring from the bakery and eat it for breakfast on the morning of 6 January.
Q 25What are the main ingredients of turrón, the nougat eaten across Spain at Christmas?
Honey, sugar, egg white and almonds
Honey, sugar, egg white and almonds go into both classic kinds: the hard one keeps its almonds whole, and for the soft one they are ground to a paste.
Q 26The soft variety of turrón carries the name of which Spanish town?
Jijona
Jijona gives the soft turrón its name: makers there grind the mixture to a paste, while the hard kind, named after nearby Alicante, is left as a rigid block.
Q 27Which Spanish city's marzipan holds EU protected status alongside Lübeck's?
Toledo
Elsewhere in Spain mazapán is a Christmas sweet, but in Toledo it is eaten all year round.
Q 28Polvorones, the crumbly Christmas shortbread, are mostly produced in which Spanish region?
Andalusia
Andalusia bakes most of them, in towns such as Estepa; the name comes from the way a polvorón crumbles to powder the moment you bite it.
Q 29What is the Tió de Nadal, the Catalan Christmas character?
A log beaten to drop presents
A log beaten to drop presents: children feed the tió for weeks and keep it under a blanket, then hit it with sticks while singing until sweets and nougat appear underneath.
Q 30From which feast day do Catalan children start feeding the Tió de Nadal each night?
The Immaculate Conception, 8 December
The Immaculate Conception, 8 December, opens the nightly feeding of the tió; its gifts are small, and the main presents come from the Three Wise Men on 6 January.