Quick answer: 57 Christmas riddles with answers, in five rounds: easy riddles for kids, pun riddles, what am I riddles, lateral thinking riddles for adults, and Christmas brain teasers with the working shown. Every riddle has one clear answer, and the harder ones explain why.
Most lists of Christmas riddles copy the same twenty from each other. About half of these you won't find elsewhere, including a riddle that turns snow into the present, a Santa parking puzzle that catches people who trust averages, and the question of which gift in The Twelve Days of Christmas you end up with the most of. The rounds get harder as you go, so young children can start at the top and adults can skip straight to round four.
If your family prefers facts to wordplay, there are 100 Christmas trivia questions and a playable Christmas quiz on our Christmas page.
How to read them aloud: read each riddle twice, give people thirty seconds, then offer one hint before you reveal the answer. Most riddles land better after a pause than after a clue.
Round one: easy Christmas riddles for kids
For ages five and up. Every answer is something children see in December.
1. I pull a sleigh, but I'm not a horse. My nose glows red, but I'm not a clown. Who am I?
Answer: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
2. I have a carrot for a nose and coal for eyes, and a sunny day is my worst enemy. What am I?
Answer: A snowman. The sun melts him.
3. I have a trunk, but I never go on holiday. In December I move indoors and wear lights. What am I?
Answer: A Christmas tree.
4. I come down the chimney with a full sack and go back up with an empty one. Who am I?
Answer: Santa Claus.
5. I hang by the fireplace. At bedtime I'm empty, and in the morning I'm full. What am I?
Answer: A Christmas stocking.
6. I'm wrapped up, but I'm not cold. You can shake me and squeeze me, but you can't open me until Christmas. What am I?
Answer: A present.
7. I'm striped red and white, I taste of peppermint, and I'm shaped like the letter J. What am I?
Answer: A candy cane.
8. I fall from the sky without a sound, and no two of us look exactly the same. What am I?
Answer: A snowflake.
9. Which of Santa's reindeer shares a name with a ball of ice and dust that flies through space with a glowing tail?
Answer: Comet.
10. You can eat my walls, my roof is made of icing, and my windows might be sweets. What am I?
Answer: A gingerbread house.
11. I'm small, I have pointy ears, and I spend all year making toys in a workshop at the North Pole. Who am I?
Answer: One of Santa's elves.
12. Shake me and I jingle. Tie me to a sleigh and I tell everyone that Santa is on his way. What am I?
Answer: A sleigh bell, also called a jingle bell.
Round two: funny Christmas pun riddles
The groan is the point. Save these for the dinner table, or swap them into Christmas crackers in place of the jokes that come inside.
13. What do you call Santa's helpers?
Answer: Subordinate Clauses. One for the English teachers at the table.
14. Why was the Christmas tree so bad at knitting?
Answer: It kept dropping its needles.
15. What do you call a reindeer with no eyes?
Answer: No idea. (No-eye deer.)
16. What do you call Santa when he stops moving?
Answer: Santa Pause.
17. Why did the elf go to see a doctor?
Answer: He was suffering from low elf-esteem.
18. What do you get if you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Answer: Frostbite.
19. Why did the gingerbread man go to bed early?
Answer: He was feeling crummy.
20. Why was the Advent calendar so nervous?
Answer: Its days were numbered.
21. What do you call a cat on the beach at Christmas?
Answer: Sandy Claws.
22. Why does the alphabet only have 25 letters at Christmas?
Answer: Because there's no L. Say Noel out loud.
23. How does a snowman get to work?
Answer: By icicle.
Round three: "what am I?" Christmas riddles
A step up. Each riddle gives three clues, and the last one usually gives it away.
24. The longer I stand, the shorter I grow. Four of me count down the Sundays before Christmas. What am I?
Answer: A candle, like the four on an Advent wreath.
25. I grow on a tree, but I'm not part of it. Hang me over a doorway and people start kissing. What am I?
Answer: Mistletoe, a plant that lives on the branches of other trees.
26. People buy me only to rip me apart. By lunchtime on Christmas Day I'm crumpled in a bin bag. What am I?
Answer: Wrapping paper.
27. I grow downward instead of up. I'm made of water, and when the sun comes out I get shorter. What am I?
Answer: An icicle.
28. I hold a whole winter in the palm of your hand. Shake me and it snows, but nobody ever gets wet. What am I?
Answer: A snow globe.
29. I arrive in an envelope, stand on a shelf for a month, and say much the same thing as all my friends standing next to me. What am I?
Answer: A Christmas card.
30. I have 24 little doors but no house. Open one a day and each hides a small surprise. What am I?
Answer: An Advent calendar.
31. I wear a soldier's uniform and have a very strong jaw. When you hear a crack, I've done my job. What am I?
Answer: A nutcracker.
32. I have runners, but I can't run. I sit still most of the year, then one night I fly around the world. What am I?
Answer: Santa's sleigh.
33. I'm silver and stringy. I shimmer on the tree, I end up all over the carpet, and the cat adores me. What am I?
Answer: Tinsel.
34. I'm round and shiny and I hang from a branch, but I'm not fruit. Drop me and I might shatter. What am I?
Answer: A bauble, the round glass ornament on a Christmas tree.
35. I'm round like a ring, but no finger fits me. I'm made of evergreen and I hang on your front door. What am I?
Answer: A Christmas wreath.
Round four: lateral thinking Christmas riddles for adults
These play fair, but they rarely mean what they seem to say. If the table is stuck, ask everyone to reread the question one word at a time.
36. In what year did New Year's Day come before Christmas Day?
Answer: Every year. New Year's Day is 1 January, and Christmas is 25 December of the same year.
37. What sits at the end of Christmas, at the start of Santa, and twice in sleighs?
Answer: The letter S.
38. Santa hopes his sack never gets one. The more you take away from it, the bigger it gets. What is it?
Answer: A hole.
39. On 27 December you find a carrot, two lumps of coal, a scarf and a hat lying on wet grass. Nobody has touched them since Christmas Day. What happened?
Answer: A snowman melted.
40. Two of Santa's elves were born on the same day of the same year to the same mother, but they are not twins. How?
Answer: They are two of a set of triplets.
41. Santa fell off a 20-foot ladder while hanging Christmas lights, but he didn't get a single bruise. How?
Answer: He fell off the bottom rung.
42. On Christmas morning a girl puts on sunscreen and heads to the beach. Her parents think this is perfectly normal. Where does she live?
Answer: In the Southern Hemisphere, for example in Australia, where Christmas falls in summer.
43. Santa has three presents in his sack and three children waiting. Each child gets one present, yet one present is still in the sack. How?
Answer: He hands the last child the whole sack, with the present still inside.
44. I fall in winter. Take away my first letter and I become the present. Take away my first two letters and I'm what you say when I hit you in the face. What am I?
Answer: Snow. Without the S it is now, the present moment. Without the S and the N it is ow.
45. I shine at the top of the tree. Spell me backwards and I become the pests in your attic. What am I?
Answer: A star. Backwards it spells rats.
46. I'm small and I help Santa. Put two letters in front of me and I become the place where you keep your books. What am I?
Answer: An elf. Add S and H to get shelf, which is where the Elf on the Shelf sits.
Round five: Christmas brain teasers with answers
Logic and a little arithmetic. Read the working aloud when you give the answer, because that is where people say "oh".
47. In the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, how many gifts does the singer receive altogether, counting every gift in every verse?
Answer: 364. On day one there is 1 gift, on day two 1 + 2 = 3, on day three 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, and so on up to 78 on day twelve. Add the twelve days together: 1 + 3 + 6 + 10 + 15 + 21 + 28 + 36 + 45 + 55 + 66 + 78 = 364.
48. Across all twelve verses, which gift does the singer end up with the most of?
Answer: A tie: 42 geese and 42 swans. A gift that comes in a group of k shows up in every verse from day k to day 12, which is 13 minus k verses. So you get k × (13 minus k) of it. The partridge gives 1 × 12 = 12, the six geese give 6 × 7 = 42, the seven swans give 7 × 6 = 42, and the twelve drummers only 12 × 1 = 12.
49. On Christmas Eve, each of Santa's nine reindeer, Rudolph included, rubs noses once with every other reindeer for luck. How many nose rubs is that?
Answer: 36. Each reindeer rubs noses with 8 others, which makes 9 × 8 = 72. But every nose rub involves two reindeer, so each one was counted twice: 72 ÷ 2 = 36.
50. Five houses stand on one long, straight street, at blocks 1, 3, 7, 12 and 20. Santa can land his sleigh only once, then walks to each house and back, one house at a time. Where should he land to walk the shortest distance?
Answer: At block 7, the middle house. Most people pick the average, block 8.6, but the middle one wins. From block 7 the one-way walks add up to 6 + 4 + 0 + 5 + 13 = 28 blocks. Move one block towards 8 and three houses get further away while only two get closer, so the total goes up to 29. Move one block towards 6 and the same happens in reverse.
51. Santa has to cross a river with a reindeer, a sack of carrots and a cheeky elf. His little boat holds Santa plus one of them. Left alone, the reindeer will eat the carrots, and the elf will ride off on the reindeer. The elf hates carrots, so those two are safe together. How does Santa get everything across?
Answer: In seven crossings. Take the reindeer over. Come back alone. Take the elf over. Bring the reindeer back. Take the carrots over and leave them with the elf. Come back alone. Take the reindeer over. The trick is step four: the reindeer has to go back before it can go forward.
52. If the day before yesterday was Christmas Eve, what is the date the day after tomorrow?
Answer: 28 December. The day before yesterday was the 24th, so yesterday was the 25th and today is the 26th. Two days later is the 28th.
53. A drawer holds 10 red and 10 green Christmas socks, all mixed up, and the power is out. How many socks must Santa pull out to be sure of a matching pair?
Answer: Three. The first two might be different colours, but with only two colours, the third sock has to match one of them.
54. A candy cane and a gingerbread man cost $1.10 together. The candy cane costs $1.00 more than the gingerbread man. How much is the gingerbread man?
Answer: 5 cents. The candy cane is then $1.05, and together they make $1.10. The quick answer, 10 cents, would make the candy cane $1.10 and the total $1.20.
55. Three elves, Holly, Ivy and Jingle, each wrap presents in one colour: red, green or gold, and no two use the same one. Holly never uses red. Ivy uses neither red nor gold. Who uses which colour?
Answer: Ivy uses green, because it is the only colour left for her. Holly can't use red, and green is taken, so Holly uses gold. That leaves red for Jingle.
56. One of three elves ate the cookie left out for Santa. Pip says, "Tinsel did it." Tinsel says, "I didn't do it." Sprout says, "I didn't do it." Exactly one of them is telling the truth. Who ate the cookie?
Answer: Sprout. Test each suspect. If Pip ate it, Tinsel and Sprout are both telling the truth, which is two. If Tinsel ate it, Pip and Sprout are both telling the truth, again two. Only if Sprout ate it is there exactly one true statement: Tinsel's.
57. An elf writes the house number, from 1 to 100, on one gift tag for every house on a street. How many times does the elf write the digit 9?
Answer: 20. The 9 appears in the ones place ten times (9, 19, 29 and so on up to 99) and in the tens place ten times (90 to 99). Most people say 19, forgetting that 99 needs two of them.
How to use these Christmas riddles
Advent calendar. Write one riddle per door and put the answer on the back, or inside the next day's door so there is a reason to open it. Rounds one and three give you 24 riddles for younger children. Older children and adults can take a brain teaser on the weekends.
Christmas party. Read the pun riddles between courses and use round five as a team round with pen and paper. For more ideas that work with a mixed group, see our Christmas party games.
Classroom. Round one works as a warm-up for any age. Riddles 44 to 46 are spelling puzzles in disguise, and the brain teasers make a good maths lesson for the last week before the holidays.
Office party or pub quiz. Round four works best with adults, because the answers sound obvious only after someone says them. Pair it with a round of Christmas movie trivia or a December round at a pub quiz.
For the rest of the season, there are Christmas facts to read out between rounds, and for the other eleven months, trivia questions by category and easy trivia questions that work for mixed ages. And if the person who solved the reindeer puzzle wants more of that feeling in two minutes a day, NerdSip has short lessons on just about anything they are curious about.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are good Christmas riddles for kids?
Short ones about things children see every December. I pull a sleigh but I'm not a horse, and my nose glows red but I'm not a clown (Rudolph). I hang by the fireplace, empty at bedtime and full in the morning (a stocking). I have 24 little doors but no house (an Advent calendar).
What are hard Christmas riddles for adults?
Riddles that hide the trick in the wording. In what year did New Year's Day come before Christmas Day? Every year, because 1 January comes before 25 December. Santa has three presents for three children, each child gets one, and one is still in the sack. The last child gets the sack with the present inside.
What is a funny Christmas riddle?
Why does the alphabet only have 25 letters at Christmas? Because there's no L. Say Noel out loud and it lands. Another good one: why was the Advent calendar so nervous? Its days were numbered.
How many gifts are given in The Twelve Days of Christmas?
364 if you add every gift in every verse. The twelfth day alone brings 78. Counted by type, the geese and the swans tie for the most, with 42 each.
How do you use Christmas riddles in an Advent calendar?
Write one riddle per door and hide the answer on the back or in the next day's door. Start with the easy rounds in early December and save the brain teasers for the last week, when children are counting the days anyway.
Every NerdSip course clears a four-layer fact-checking pipeline before it reaches the app: grounded in live sources, scored nightly, gated on failure, and reviewable by a person at one tap. Articles on this blog are drafted with AI assistance, then researched, verified, and edited by our team.
Editorial responsibility: ai51 UG (haftungsbeschränkt). Responsible editor named in the imprint.
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