Christmas Trivia for Kids, with Answers

From the parent who made Super Trivia Kids · October 11, 2026

Forty Christmas and winter questions for the dinner table, the car, or the long wait before presents. They're split into an easier round for kindergarten through 2nd grade and a harder one for 3rd through 5th. Tap "Answer" to check.

I've mixed in a little science, math, reading and Spanish, because those are the subjects my kids are working on anyway. After the questions there are a few notes from the research on how to make trivia stick, if you're curious. If you're not, the questions are all you need.

Looking for questions kids can answer on their own? Try Super Trivia Kids free in your browser. Every question is read out loud, so even pre-readers can play.

Easier round (K–2)

Christmas stories and songs

1. What color is Rudolph's nose?
   Answer

   Red.
2. In the song, what does Frosty the Snowman find that brings him to life?
   Answer

   An old silk hat.
3. In How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, what is the name of the Grinch's dog?
   Answer

   Max.
4. How many sizes did the Grinch's heart grow?
   Answer

   Three.
5. What month is Christmas in?
   Answer

   December. Christmas Day is December 25.
6. Where does Santa live, according to the stories?
   Answer

   The North Pole.

Animals in winter

7. What do you call a baby reindeer?
   Answer

   A calf.
8. Do polar bears and penguins live in the same place?
   Answer

   No. Polar bears live in the far north, around the Arctic. Almost all penguins live in the southern half of the world. They never meet in the wild.
9. Which grows antlers on reindeer: the boys, the girls, or both?
   Answer

   Both! Reindeer are the only kind of deer where the females grow antlers too.
10. What color does the Arctic fox's fur turn in winter?
    Answer

    White, so it blends in with the snow.

Snow and cold

11. How many sides or points does a snowflake have?
    Answer

    Six.
12. What is snow made of?
    Answer

    Tiny ice crystals, which is frozen water.
13. What happens to a snowman when the sun comes out and it gets warm?
    Answer

    It melts and turns back into water.

Counting

14. Santa's sleigh has 8 reindeer, plus Rudolph in front. How many reindeer is that?
    Answer

    9.
15. You hang 3 stockings and your grandma brings 2 more. How many stockings now?
    Answer

    5.
16. There are 10 cookies on the plate for Santa. He eats 4. How many are left?
    Answer

    6.

Spanish

17. "Feliz Navidad" is Spanish for what?
    Answer

    Merry Christmas.
18. What is the Spanish word for snow: nieve, sol or agua?
    Answer

    Nieve. (Sol is sun and agua is water.)

Harder round (3–5)

History and stories

19. Name as many of Santa's eight reindeer from "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" as you can.
    Answer

    Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder (sometimes spelled Donner) and Blitzen.
20. "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" was first published in 1823. What was its real title?
    Answer

    "A Visit from St. Nicholas."
21. Rudolph wasn't in the original poem. He was invented in 1939 for what?
    Answer

    A free booklet handed out at a department store, Montgomery Ward. Robert L. May wrote it. The song came about ten years later.
22. Who wrote How the Grinch Stole Christmas!?
    Answer

    Dr. Seuss, in 1957.
23. Which country is usually credited with starting the tradition of bringing a Christmas tree indoors?
    Answer

    Germany.
24. The poinsettia, the red holiday plant, first grew wild in which country?
    Answer

    Mexico. In Spanish it's often called flor de Nochebuena, the Christmas Eve flower.
25. In December 1965, two astronauts played a Christmas song in space on a harmonica and bells. Which song?
    Answer

    "Jingle Bells." It was on the Gemini 6 mission.

Science

26. Why is it cold in winter? Is it because Earth is farther from the sun?
    Answer

    No! It's because Earth is tilted. In winter, your half of the planet leans away from the sun, so sunlight hits it at a low angle and the days are shorter. Earth is actually closest to the sun in early January.
27. What is the shortest day of the year called, and when is it?
    Answer

    The winter solstice, around December 21 in the northern half of the world.
28. Snow looks white, but what color is a single ice crystal?
    Answer

    Clear. Snow looks white because all those crystals bounce light around in every direction.
29. At what temperature does water freeze, in Fahrenheit and in Celsius?
    Answer

    32°F, which is 0°C.
30. Is there land at the North Pole?
    Answer

    No. The North Pole sits in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, on ice that floats on the water. (The South Pole is on land, in Antarctica.)
31. In North America, reindeer have another name. What is it?
    Answer

    Caribou. They're the same species.

Math

32. Santa has 9 reindeer. How many reindeer legs is that?
    Answer

    36 (9 × 4).
33. In "The Twelve Days of Christmas," on the third day you get 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves and a partridge. How many gifts is that on day three?
    Answer

    6 (3 + 2 + 1).
34. How many gifts do you get on the twelfth day alone?
    Answer

    78. That's 12 + 11 + 10 + … + 1. A shortcut: pair 12 with 1, 11 with 2, and so on. That makes 6 pairs of 13.
35. Super-hard bonus: add up every gift from all twelve days. How many in total?
    Answer

    364. Almost one for every day of the year.

Spanish

36. What does invierno mean?
    Answer

    Winter.
37. How do you say "Happy New Year" in Spanish?
    Answer

    Feliz Año Nuevo.

Other winter holidays

38. How many nights is Hanukkah?
    Answer

    Eight.
39. Kwanzaa starts the day after Christmas. How many days does it last?
    Answer

    Seven, from December 26 to January 1.
40. On the Lunar New Year, many families give children red envelopes. What's usually inside?
    Answer

    Money, for good luck in the new year.

A few things I read about making trivia stick

I'm a software engineer, so when something works I want to know why. Family trivia turns out to line up with some of the best-supported ideas in learning research. Here's what I found, and where it's thinner than I'd like.

Guessing first is the point. Trying to pull an answer out of your head helps you remember it later, more than reading it again does. Psychologists call this retrieval practice. The classic study was on college students (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). A smaller one found the same thing with kids around 10 years old (Karpicke, Blunt & Smith, 2016). So it's worth letting your kid sit with a question for a few seconds before anyone blurts out the answer.

Saying the answer beats picking it. A big review found that producing an answer helps memory more than recognizing it in a list (Rowland, 2014). That's why I wrote most of these as open questions rather than multiple choice. Most of that research was on adults, though.

Come back to it next week. Practice spread out over days is remembered better than the same practice crammed into one sitting. That's been shown with 5- to 7-year-olds learning science (Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012) and with fifth graders learning vocabulary (Sobel, Cepeda & Kapler, 2011). Both were small studies. Still, asking the reindeer question again on Christmas Eve costs nothing.

You probably don't need prizes. This one surprised me. A large review of experiments found that promised, tangible rewards for doing something tended to make kids less interested in doing it for its own sake. Specific, honest praise tended to help (Deci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999). In the same spirit, praise the guessing and the trying, not "you're so smart" (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Those effects turned out smaller in later research, but it's an easy habit.

Take turns being the quizmaster. I don't have a study for this one, just what I care about. Reading the questions, waiting for a little brother to think, and being a good sport about getting one wrong are all practice at the social stuff I want my kids to have. Older kids can read the harder round to younger ones.

None of this was tested on Christmas trivia specifically. It's just the closest evidence I could find for why a quiz game at the dinner table might do more than pass the time.

If your kids want more questions after the holidays, Super Trivia Kids has grade-level math, reading, spelling, science and Spanish. You play it together, taking turns on one device.

Sources

• Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
• Karpicke, J. D., Blunt, J. R., & Smith, M. A. (2016). Retrieval-based learning: Positive effects of retrieval practice in elementary school children. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 350. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00350
• Rowland, C. A. (2014). The effect of testing versus restudy on retention: A meta-analytic review of the testing effect. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 1432–1463. doi.org/10.1037/a0037559
• Vlach, H. A., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2012). Distributing learning over time: The spacing effect in children's acquisition and generalization of science concepts. Child Development, 83(4), 1137–1144. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01781.x
• Sobel, H. S., Cepeda, N. J., & Kapler, I. V. (2011). Spacing effects in real-world classroom vocabulary learning. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 763–767. doi.org/10.1002/acp.1747
• Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627–668. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.125.6.627
• Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children's motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 33–52. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.33

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