How to Run a Christmas Quiz Night at Home (+ Printable Games)

Looking for a fun Christmas activity that gets everyone around the table and away from their phones?

A Christmas quiz night is one of the easiest ways to turn an ordinary evening at home into something everyone can enjoy. You don't need a huge amount of preparation, expensive decorations or complicated equipment. Just gather your guests, print your quiz, add some festive snacks and get ready for a little friendly competition!

Whether you're planning a Christmas party with friends, a family get-together, a festive evening with neighbours or a work Christmas celebration at home, here's how to run your own Christmas quiz night.

1. Decide Who's Playing

First, think about your guests. A quiz can work with almost any group, but if you have a larger crowd, splitting everyone into teams can make things even more fun. Teams also mean that people with different strengths can work together.

One person might know every Christmas film ever made, while another is surprisingly good at geography. Someone else might be the person who somehow remembers obscure facts from 1998. That's exactly what makes a good quiz team!

For a family Christmas quiz, mixed-age teams can work particularly well. For an adults-only evening, you can make the questions a little more challenging.

2. Choose Your Christmas Quiz

The easiest way to run a quiz night is to start with a ready-made Christmas quiz rather than spending hours writing questions yourself.

Our favourite: The Ultimate Christmas Quiz

For a traditional Christmas quiz night, The Ultimate Christmas Quiz is a great place to start. It includes 9 festive rounds, covering a mixture of topics so that everyone gets a chance to shine:

• Christmas Trivia
• Christmas Music
• TV & Film
• True or False
• Christmas Initials
• Christmas History
• Christmas Geography
• It Happened on Christmas Day
• Christmas Food & Drink

There are plenty of opportunities for those "I know this!" moments, as well as a few questions that will have everyone arguing over the answer.

The quiz comes as an instant printable download so there's no need to spend your evening researching Christmas facts or frantically trying to write questions.

Get The Ultimate Christmas Quiz →

Ready to play? Purchase your copy and play instantly.

3. Create Your Teams

For a larger Christmas quiz night, we'd recommend teams of around 2–5 people. Give each team a name and provide them with paper and pens for their answers.

And don't underestimate the importance of a good team name.

Festive names such as Quiz Kringles, The Noel-it-alls, 3 Wise-Men or The Santa Clauses may be terrible. That's part of the fun.

If you're playing with a small group, you don't need teams at all. Everyone can simply play individually and keep their own score.

4. Choose Your Quizmaster

One person needs to be the quizmaster. This doesn't need to be a particularly serious role. The quizmaster simply reads the questions, keeps things moving and reveals the answers.

Before everyone arrives, have your quiz printed and ready to go. It's also worth having:

• Pens for everyone
• Spare paper for answers
• A calculator or phone for adding up scores
• A prize for the winning team
• A festive playlist for the breaks
• Plenty of snacks and drinks

You could even give the quizmaster a little bell or Christmas hat. Purely for professional reasons, obviously.

5. Add a Prize

A small prize makes a quiz feel surprisingly competitive.

It doesn't have to be expensive. A box of chocolates, a bottle of something festive, a Christmas mug, a Print GoGo gift card or even a homemade certificate can be enough.

You could also have a booby prize for the team with the lowest score. The team that confidently announces that the North Pole is in Iceland deserves some recognition too.

6. Make It More Than Just Questions and Answers

The best quiz nights aren't necessarily the ones with the most questions. They're the ones where everyone gets involved.

Take a break between rounds so people can chat, refill their drinks and enjoy some food. You can also add a few little challenges throughout the evening.

For example:

⭐ Best team name – Give an extra point for the most creative name.

⭐ Closest answer wins – Useful for questions involving numbers.

⭐ Double points – Let teams choose one round where they can double their score.

⭐ Final question – Finish with a question where teams can wager some or all of their points.

You don't need to overcomplicate things. A few small twists can make a familiar quiz feel like a proper event.

7. Have a Warm Up Game

If you're planning a longer Christmas quiz night, mixing different types of games can keep everyone's attention.

Try Christmas Trivia Bingo

Christmas Trivia Bingo is a fun alternative to a traditional quiz.

Instead of simply working through a list of questions, players answer festive trivia questions while working towards completing a line on their bingo card.

There are 40 quiz questions across two games, so it works particularly well as a second game or a quick warm-up before the main quiz.

It's also a good option if you have people who aren't particularly keen on traditional quizzes. The bingo element gives everyone another reason to get involved.

Click here to purchase and download today.

8. Throw in Some Unexpected Rounds

A great Christmas quiz shouldn't be completely predictable. Historical questions can be particularly good because they're often full of surprising facts.

It Happened on... Christmas and New Year is based around famous events and asks players to decide whether they really happened on Christmas Day, New Year's Day – or not at all.

It's perfect for those moments when everyone is convinced they know the answer... and then discovers they absolutely did not.

It's also a nice option for a Christmas quiz that continues into New Year celebrations.

9. Give Puzzle Lovers Their Own Round

Not everyone is a trivia expert. Some people are much better at spotting patterns, solving clues and working out visual puzzles. If that's your group, consider adding a puzzle round to your Christmas quiz night.

Our Christmas Puzzle Quiz Bundle includes a variety of festive brain teasers and visual challenges, including Christmas dingbats and emoji-style puzzles.

It's a great way to mix things up and gives different people a chance to become the star of the team.

After all, the person who couldn't remember the capital of Norway might suddenly become a genius when presented with a Christmas dingbat.

Take on the challenge and download your copy today.

10. Finish With the Final Scores

Once you've completed all your rounds, it's time to add everything up.

If there's a tie, have a tie-breaker question ready. A closest-answer-wins question works particularly well because it avoids having to come up with another full round. Here's an example you can use:

Exactly how many minutes long is the classic 1990 holiday film Home Alone? Answer: 103 minutes

And remember: the quizmaster's decision is final. Even when your brother insists that his answer was technically correct.

Make It Easy on Yourself

The biggest tip for hosting a Christmas quiz night? Don't make more work for yourself than you need to.

Christmas is already busy enough. There's no reason to spend hours searching for Christmas trivia questions, checking answers and formatting quiz sheets when you could have everything ready to print in minutes.

With a printable Christmas quiz, you can download the game, print what you need and concentrate on the important things - finding enough chairs and deciding whether your own family is going to take the quiz far too seriously.

At Print GoGo, we create printable games and quizzes designed to make getting everyone together a little easier.