75 Christmas Riddles With Answers (Easy, Funny and Hard)

Riddles have been part of winter gatherings for a very long time. The Old English Exeter Book, copied around the year 975, holds nearly a hundred of them, and Victorian families kept the habit alive by reading puzzles aloud by the fire. Today the easiest place to find one is inside a Christmas cracker, right next to the paper crown.

This list gives you 75 Christmas riddles with answers, sorted from easy picture-book puzzles to brain-benders that will stump the adults. Every answer sits right under its riddle, so you can read straight down the page at the dinner table, on a car ride or in class.

Easy Christmas Riddles for Kids

These short riddles work for preschool and early primary. Read them slowly, and give a small hint if the room goes quiet for more than ten seconds.

1. What has a trunk but never travels, and gets dressed up every December?
   Answer: A Christmas tree.
2. I am white, I fall from the sky, and I melt in your hand. What am I?
   Answer: A snowflake.
3. What do you hang at the end of your bed or by the fireplace on Christmas Eve?
   Answer: A stocking.
4. I have a red nose and help pull a sleigh. Who am I?
   Answer: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
5. What is round, shiny and hangs on a branch but is not a fruit?
   Answer: An ornament (a bauble).
6. I am made of snow, I have a carrot nose, and I disappear when the sun comes out. What am I?
   Answer: A snowman.
7. What gets wrapped up but never gets cold?
   Answer: A present.
8. I am striped red and white and shaped like a hook. What am I?
   Answer: A candy cane.
9. What lights up the tree but is not a star?
   Answer: Fairy lights (Christmas lights).
10. Who lives at the North Pole and makes toys all year long?
    Answer: The elves.
11. I sit on top of the tree and shine the brightest. What am I?
    Answer: The star (or the angel).
12. What do you leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve?
    Answer: Milk and cookies (in the UK, often a mince pie and a carrot for the reindeer).
13. What has keys but cannot open a single door, and plays carols all December?
    Answer: A piano.
14. I am green, prickly and have red berries. People hang me in their homes. What am I?
    Answer: Holly.
15. What kind of house is sweet enough to eat?
    Answer: A gingerbread house.
16. What do you call a snowman in July?
    Answer: A puddle.
17. I ring but I am not a phone. I jingle on a sleigh. What am I?
    Answer: A bell.
18. What falls in winter but never gets hurt?
    Answer: Snow.
19. I have a hat, a scarf and two coal eyes, but I cannot walk. What am I?
    Answer: A snowman.
20. What do you call the big sled Santa rides in?
    Answer: A sleigh.

Funny Christmas Riddles

Funny riddles lean on puns, so they land best with kids aged 7 and up who are starting to enjoy wordplay. Expect groans. Groans are the goal.

21. What do you call Santa’s helpers?
    Answer: Subordinate clauses.
22. Why is Santa so good at karate?
    Answer: Because he has a black belt.
23. What do snowmen eat for breakfast?
    Answer: Frosted Flakes.
24. What is a reindeer’s favorite game?
    Answer: Stable tennis.
25. Where do snowmen keep their money?
    Answer: In a snowbank.
26. What do you get if you cross a bell with a skunk?
    Answer: Jingle smells.
27. What is Tarzan’s favorite Christmas song?
    Answer: Jungle Bells.
28. What did the Gingerbread Man put on his bed?
    Answer: A cookie sheet.
29. Why did the Christmas tree go to the barber?
    Answer: It needed a trim.
30. What do elves learn in school?
    Answer: The elf-abet.
31. What is the best Christmas present in the world?
    Answer: A broken drum. You just can’t beat it.
32. What did one snowman say to the other snowman?
    Answer: “Do you smell carrots?”
33. How does a sheep say Merry Christmas?
    Answer: Fleece Navidad.
34. Why are Christmas trees bad at knitting?
    Answer: They always drop their needles.
35. What do you call a cat on the beach at Christmas?
    Answer: Sandy Claws.

Santa and Reindeer Riddles

Santa’s team comes from Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which named eight reindeer. Rudolph joined in 1939, when copywriter Robert L. May wrote his story for a Montgomery Ward booklet. Kids who know those facts will breeze through this section.

36. I have eight friends who fly, but I was the one added last. Who am I?
    Answer: Rudolph.
37. Which reindeer has a name that sounds like a thunderstorm?
    Answer: Donner (German for thunder). Blitzen means lightning.
38. Which of Santa’s reindeer shares a name with the Roman god of love?
    Answer: Cupid.
39. Santa comes down this, but you would never use it as a door. What is it?
    Answer: The chimney.
40. What does Santa check twice?
    Answer: His list of who is naughty and nice.
41. Which reindeer is the best dancer?
    Answer: Dancer, of course (Prancer is a close second).
42. What did Santa say when he went to the bank?
    Answer: “I need to check my Claus-ings.”
43. Santa was a real bishop long ago. In which modern country did he live?
    Answer: Turkey. Saint Nicholas was Bishop of Myra, near today’s Demre.
44. I ride in a sleigh, I am not Santa, and I keep the toys in order. Who am I?
    Answer: An elf.
45. What do you call a reindeer with no eyes?
    Answer: No-eye-deer (no idea).
46. Which of Santa’s reindeer has the worst manners?
    Answer: Rude-olph.
47. Where does Santa go swimming?
    Answer: In the North Pool.
48. Which word for Santa comes from the Dutch name Sinterklaas?
    Answer: Santa Claus.

Hard Christmas Riddles for Adults

These riddles reward lateral thinking. Give each table two minutes per riddle, and award a bonus point for anyone who explains the logic out loud.

49. A man was outside in the snow on Christmas Eve without a coat, hat or umbrella. Not a single hair on his head got wet. How?
    Answer: He was bald.
50. If an electric train is traveling north toward the North Pole, which way does the smoke blow?
    Answer: It doesn’t. Electric trains have no smoke.
51. What comes once in a year, twice in a week, but never in a day?
    Answer: The letter E.
52. How many gifts are given in total in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”?
    Answer: 364, nearly one for every day of the year.
53. Which month of the year has 28 days?
    Answer: All of them, including December.
54. Santa had 10 cookies. All but 7 were eaten by the reindeer. How many are left?
    Answer: 7.
55. I am an odd number. Take away one letter and I become even. What number am I?
    Answer: Seven (remove the S).
56. What can you catch at Christmas but never throw?
    Answer: A cold.
57. The more of me you take, the more you leave behind. Santa makes plenty of me in the snow. What am I?
    Answer: Footprints.
58. Christmas and New Year’s Day always fall on the same day of the week. Why?
    Answer: They are exactly one week apart (December 25 to January 1).
59. What has a head and a tail but no body, and might end up in a Christmas pudding?
    Answer: A coin. Hiding a sixpence in the pudding is an old British custom.
60. I have cities but no houses, forests but no trees, and water but no fish. Santa uses me every year. What am I?
    Answer: A map.
61. A woman shoots her husband, holds him underwater for five minutes, then hangs him. That night they go out to a Christmas party. How?
    Answer: She shot a photo, developed it and hung it up to dry.
62. What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
    Answer: Short.

“What Am I?” Christmas Riddles

These longer riddles give three clues in a row. They make great clues for a treasure hunt because you can tape each one to the object it describes.

63. I am burned at Christmas, but nobody is sad. Sometimes I am a cake with chocolate bark. What am I?
    Answer: A Yule log.
64. Stand under me and you might get a kiss. I grow on trees but I am not a fruit. What am I?
    Answer: Mistletoe.
65. I am pulled by two people, I make a bang, and I hide a joke inside. What am I?
    Answer: A Christmas cracker, invented by London sweet maker Tom Smith in the 1840s.
66. I have 24 little doors and a surprise behind each one. What am I?
    Answer: An advent calendar.
67. I am red, I am a flower, and I came to the US from Mexico. What am I?
    Answer: A poinsettia, named after diplomat Joel Roberts Poinsett.
68. I am full of stuffing but I am not a teddy bear. I am the star of dinner. What am I?
    Answer: The turkey.
69. I come in a box, I sit under a tree, and I make everyone curious. What am I?
    Answer: A gift.
70. I am sung door to door, often in the cold, and I am hundreds of years old. What am I?
    Answer: A Christmas carol.
71. I have a little spirit and a big scary horn, and I punish naughty kids in the Alps. Who am I?
    Answer: Krampus.
72. I am made of paper and glitter, I arrive in the mail, and I hang on strings across the room. What am I?
    Answer: A Christmas card. The first commercial one was printed in 1843.
73. I am cut from paper, no two of me are alike, and I stick on cold windows. What am I?
    Answer: A paper snowflake.
74. I am lit one candle at a time for four Sundays before Christmas. What am I?
    Answer: An Advent wreath.
75. I shine on a tree but can also be eaten. I am shaped like a man and I run away fast. Who am I?
    Answer: The Gingerbread Man.

How to Turn Christmas Riddles Into a Game

A list is fun to read, but a game keeps a room full of people engaged for much longer. Here are four formats that need nothing more than this page and a pen.

Riddle Relay

Split the group into two teams. One person reads a riddle, and the first team to shout the correct answer wins a point. Rotate the reader each round so everyone gets a turn in the spotlight.

Riddle Scavenger Hunt

Write the “What am I?” riddles on cards and tape each one to the object it describes: the advent calendar, the wreath, the tree. The answer to each card points to where the next clue is hidden. Put a small prize, like a candy cane or a hot cocoa packet, at the final stop.

Cracker Swap

Write riddles on small slips, roll them up and tuck them into empty toilet paper tubes wrapped in tissue paper. Guests pull them open at the table, read the riddle aloud and the person to their left has to answer.

Classroom Riddle Wall

Post one riddle on the board each morning in December. Students write their guess on a sticky note, and you reveal the answer at the end of the day. It is a simple way to practice reading comprehension and inference.

Tips for Reading Riddles Aloud

• Pause before the answer. Count to five in your head. The silence is where the fun happens.
• Match the riddle to the crowd. Puns fall flat with toddlers, and easy riddles bore teenagers.
• Give hints, not answers. “It’s something you eat” keeps people guessing without spoiling it.
• Let kids write their own. Ask them to describe a Christmas object in three clues without naming it. It is great creative writing practice.

If your family loves holiday puzzles, pair these riddles with our Christmas movie trivia questions or a round of candy cane games for the kids.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good Christmas riddle for kids?

“What has a trunk but never travels?” (a Christmas tree) is a classic for young kids because the answer is something they can see in the room. Short riddles with one clear clue work best for ages 4 to 7.

What is the hardest Christmas riddle?

Lateral-thinking puzzles are the hardest, such as the photographer riddle (number 61 above). They rely on a word having two meanings, so solvers have to question their first assumption.

What is the difference between a riddle and a joke?

A riddle asks the listener to solve something using clues, while a joke is built for a punchline. Many Christmas cracker “riddles” are really pun jokes in question form, which is why both appear on this list.

Where do Christmas cracker jokes come from?

Tom Smith, a London confectioner, started selling crackers with love notes inside in the 1840s. Over time the notes became mottos, then jokes and riddles. Today they are a standard part of a British Christmas dinner.

How do you make a Christmas riddle?

Pick a holiday object, write three facts about it without naming it, and end with “What am I?” Start with a vague clue and finish with an obvious one so people can solve it step by step.

Final Thoughts

Christmas riddles cost nothing, need no setup and work for every age at the table. Start with the easy ones to warm up, throw in a few puns for laughs, and save the hard riddles for when the adults think they have it all figured out. Bookmark this page, and you will have a ready-made game every December.