Q 01/05

What colors are the stripes on a classic candy cane?

A) White and red

B) White and green

C) Red and green

D) Gold and white

Answer · why

A) White and red

Modern canes come in every flavor and color, but the peppermint original was plain white for most of the 1800s.

Q 02/05

The best-known candy cane origin story places its 1670 invention in which German cathedral city?

A) Munich

B) Nuremberg

C) Cologne

D) Dresden

Answer · why

C) Cologne

The tale is almost certainly invented after the fact: no version of it appears in print before the mid-20th century.

Q 03/05

In the 1670 legend, why did the cathedral choirmaster hand out sugar sticks to children?

A) To reward the best singers

B) To keep them quiet during the Christmas Eve creche

C) To celebrate the cathedral's completion

D) To pay them for the service

Answer · why

B) To keep them quiet during the Christmas Eve creche

He supposedly asked the candy maker to add a crook so the sticks would recall the shepherds' staffs.

Q 04/05

In which Ohio town did August Imgard decorate the first documented US Christmas tree in 1847?

A) Dayton

B) Toledo

C) Akron

D) Wooster

Answer · why

D) Wooster

Wooster still celebrates him; the tree was a blue spruce cut from woods outside town.

Q 05/05

The earliest known printed use of 'candy cane' appears in an 1866 story published by whom?

A) Harper's Weekly

B) Godey's Lady's Book

C) The Atlantic Monthly

D) Ballou's Monthly

Answer · why

D) Ballou's Monthly

The story was 'Tom Luther's Stockings'; the first explicit link to Christmas came eight years later in The Nursery.