Hard Christmas Trivia for Adults

A Burgermeister Meisterburger. He bans toys in Sombertown after tripping over one. Fred Astaire narrates as a mailman.

D Angels with Filthy Souls. It doesn't exist. The filmmakers shot it just for Home Alone as a spoof of the 1938 James Cagney film Angels with Dirty Faces.

A Vince Guaraldi. The soundtrack album, with Christmas Time Is Here and Linus and Lucy, is one of the best-selling jazz albums ever.

B Henry Selick. Henry Selick directed it. Tim Burton came up with the story and produced, which is why his name is in the title.

C Paul Giamatti. Kevin Spacey plays the efficiency expert sent to shut down the North Pole.

D An elf named Patch. David Huddleston plays Santa, and John Lithgow plays the greedy toymaker.

A King Moonracer. He's a winged lion who flies around the world looking for unwanted toys to bring back to the island.

C Nothing Lasts Forever. Roderick Thorp's 1979 book was a sequel to his novel The Detective, which had been filmed with Frank Sinatra.

A Washington Dulles. He's there to pick up Holly, whose plane is stuck circling overhead while terrorists hold the airport hostage.

C Leroy Anderson. Anderson started it during a summer heat wave in 1947, and the Boston Pops premiered it in 1948. Mitchell Parish added lyrics in 1950.

A Mame. Angela Lansbury introduced it in 1966. Jerry Herman wrote the score, and he wrote Hello, Dolly! too.

C Up on the Housetop. It's one of the first popular songs to make Santa Claus its main subject. Hanby also wrote the anti-slavery song Darling Nelly Gray.

D The Cuban Missile Crisis. Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne, a married couple, wrote it that October. Bing Crosby's 1963 version made it a standard.

C Johnny Marks. Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May, created Rudolph, and Marks turned the story into a song in 1949.

C Philadelphia. Phillips Brooks wrote it in 1868 for the Sunday school at his Philadelphia church, a few years after visiting Bethlehem on horseback.

D The O Antiphons. The antiphons were sung at evening prayer in the last days before Christmas. John Mason Neale's English translation dates to 1851.

C Eddie Cantor. J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie wrote it. Within a day of Cantor singing it, about half a million copies of the sheet music had sold.

D Tuberculosis. The idea came from a Danish postal clerk in 1904. Emily Bissell brought it to Delaware to save a small tuberculosis hospital.

A Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence. The station's president wanted to give New Yorkers without fireplaces a fire to watch. It ran for hours with no commercials.

B F. W. Woolworth. Lauscha's glassblowers had been making ornaments since the 1800s. Woolworth's stores helped put them on American trees.

B A berry was picked off. Once the berries ran out, so did the kissing. Washington Irving described the rule in his Christmas sketches of 1820.

D Rome. A Roman calendar compiled in AD 354 lists the date and points back to around 336. Why December 25 was chosen is still debated.

D The anniversary of Joel Poinsett's death. Poinsett died on December 12, 1851. Congress made the day official in 2002.

A Staves. A stave is a verse of a song, which keeps up the idea of the book as a carol.

C Stir-up Sunday. It's the last Sunday before Advent, named for a church prayer that begins "Stir up, we beseech thee."

B A rice cake baked in banana leaves. It's traditionally baked in a clay pot with hot coals above and below. Puto bumbong, purple sticky rice steamed in bamboo, is the other classic.

A Lye. It's rinsed for days after the lye soak and usually served with melted butter or a white sauce.

A 13. The number stands for Jesus and the twelve apostles. Dried fruit, nuts, nougat and a sweet olive-oil bread are usually in the lineup.

A The Moravians. Moravian settlers brought the recipe from Germany in the 1700s. The cookies are rolled so thin you can almost see through them.

C Tamales. February 2 is Candlemas, Día de la Candelaria. Tamales and hot atole are the standard menu.

D New Mexico. New Mexico picked it in 1989. Families bake them by the hundreds for Christmas.

B Corn dough with stew, wrapped in banana leaves. Making them is an all-hands family job, and the filling usually mixes the meat stew with olives, raisins and capers.

B Naples. The shops sell shepherds and angels next to modern figures of celebrities, and they stay busy year round.

A 1958. The Scottish Reformation had frowned on Christmas for centuries. Boxing Day followed in 1974.

B A log with a painted face that brings presents. Kids "feed" the log for weeks, then on Christmas they hit it with sticks while singing so it will "poop" out candy and small gifts.

B Thirteen. They arrive one per night starting December 12, each named for his favorite mischief, like Spoon-Licker and Door-Slammer.

A A girl chosen to play the Christkind. Since 1969, a local young woman between 16 and 19 has been chosen for the role every two years. She reads a prologue from the balcony of the Frauenkirche.

C A horse's skull on a pole. The person carrying it hides under a sheet. The group trades sung verses with the people inside, who eventually let them in for food and drink.

B Yule goat. The name goes back to an old custom in which people dressed as goats went house to house at Christmas.

B His granddaughter, the Snow Maiden. Her name is Snegurochka. Ded Moroz traditionally brings gifts on New Year's Eve.

D December 5. It's the eve of St. Nicholas Day, so Nicholas handles the good kids the next morning.

B 1905. The Eaton's department store ran it, and the first one had a single float. The year before, Santa had walked from Union Station to the store.

B The Council of Nicaea. The story says he struck Arius at the council in AD 325. Historians treat it as legend, since early records don't mention it.

C White Rock. White Rock sold mineral water and ginger ale. Its Santa ads ran years before Coke's 1931 campaign.

C Brockton, Massachusetts. Edgar, a Scottish-born dry goods merchant, put on a Santa suit to walk his store. Within days kids were coming by train from as far as Boston and Providence.

B Jacob. Matthew 1:16. Luke's genealogy names Heli instead, and readers have offered explanations for the difference since the early church.

B Hosea. Hosea 11:1, where it refers to Israel coming out of Egypt in the Exodus. Matthew 2:15 applies it to Jesus.

A House of bread. Bet Lechem. Christians have long noticed the fit with Jesus calling himself the bread of life in John 6:35.

C The eighth. That's why January 1, eight days after Christmas, was long kept as the Feast of the Circumcision.

D Isaiah 1:3. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib." Early Christian writers connected it to the manger.