1) Which reindeer was a social outcast among other reindeer, according to a popular song?


2) Name the original eighth reindeer that hauled Santa’s sleigh, according to popular 1823 poem A visit from St Nicholas.


3) What is the missing word in the poem Twas the night before Christmas? When all thro’ the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a ..........


4) By tradition, what should be hung near the chimney?


5) Every year which country donates a giant Christmas tree for the British to raise in Trafalgar Square as a thank you for helping during the Second World War? 


6) What name is given to the religious season which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas?


7) Name each of the three gifts that the Magi brought to baby Jesus after following a guiding star.


8) What is the name of the tale featuring Ebenezer Scrooge, written by Charles Dickens?


9) Scrooge is an old miser who hates Christmas. He is visited by whose ghost, who tells him he will be visited by three spirits? 


10) It was Slade’s sixth and final number one hit single. You hear it every Christmas, but in what year was Merry Christmas Everybody first released?


11) It is a common tradition that primary and secondary schools put on what kind of play?


12) Christmas decorations are traditionally left up until when, for it is considered bad luck to have Christmas decorations up after this date? 


13) What popular edible Christmas treat can be traced to the return of European crusaders from the Holy Land, because Middle Eastern methods of cooking, which sometimes combined meats, fruits and spices, were popular at the time? 


14) One tradition is to put out a plate of carrots for the reindeer and mince pies and what type of alcoholic drink for Father Christmas to help him on his way?


15) The majority of families open their presents on the morning of Christmas Day. Which family is the notable exception, as they open their gifts on Christmas Eve, following German tradition? 


16) What do you call a segmented cardboard tube wrapped in a brightly decorated twist of paper with a prize in the central chamber?


17) The Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest attestations from Britain in the 1830s, defining it as “the first weekday after Christmas-day, observed as a holiday on which postmen, errand boys and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas box. What is its name?


18) Who was a guest in the 1976 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, first appearing behind a BBC newsdesk then emerging to perform a high-kicking dance routine? Her appearance was so popular she made an appearance in the following year’s show, in which she was revealed to be one of a chorus line. 


19) Which town was the birthplace of Jesus? 


20) Bethlehem was destroyed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian during a second century revolt. Its rebuilding was promoted by which Roman Empress, the mother of Constantine the Great, who commissioned the building of its great Church of the Nativity in 327 AD? 


Bonus question: According to bad Christmas cracker jokes, what is the name of the fairy on to of the Christmas tree? 

  •  See next week’s paper or sthelensstar.co.uk for the answers