Can you Jingle All the Way through our Christmas film quiz?

We asked a Stirling festive film expert to create a tricky list of questions just for The Courier.

By Alex Watson

December 16 2024, 6:00am

Home Alone is a festive favourite for many movie lovers. Image: Ksenia Shestakova/Shutterstock

Most of us have a favourite festive film or two we love watching during December every year, in the run-up to Christmas.

For Dr Thomas A Christie, it’s a little more complicated than that.

He’s an author, cultural historian and lecturer from Stirling – as well as an expert on Christmas cinema.

His 20th book, A Seriously Groovy Movie Christmas, was recently published, looking into festive films of the 1960s and 1970s.

It’s the last of a four-volume history of Christmas cinema in the 20th century.

Dr Thomas A Christie is an author, historian and lecturer at Forth Valley College. Image: Supplied

There’s no better person to pen a Christmas movie quiz – so that’s what we asked Tom to do for The Courier, covering all eras.

Whether you’re hosting a Christmas quiz at your office party, want to test your loved ones over turkey, or just fancy trying it out for yourself, there are 12 tricky questions below.

All you’ll need is a pen, paper and some seasonal cinema knowledge.

Questions

1. In It’s a Wonderful Life, what is the name of George Bailey’s absent-minded uncle, played by actor Thomas Mitchell, who accidentally mislays the takings from the family’s beloved Building and Loan?

A) Uncle Ronnie
B) Uncle Jimmy
C) Uncle Billy
D) Uncle Reggie

2. To date, Miracle on 34th Street is the only film to feature an actor who has won an Academy Award in the role of Santa Claus. However, which other New York-themed Christmas movie was nominated for an Oscar that same year?

A) It Happened on Broadway
B) It Happened on Fifth Avenue
C) It Happened in Central Park
D) It Happened in Brooklyn

3. Irving Berlin’s famous track White Christmas appears prominently in Michael Curtiz’s 1954 musical film of the same name. But in which earlier Bing Crosby movie, which also featured the festive season, was the song first performed?

A) Holiday Inn
B) The Road to Singapore
C) The Bells of St Mary’s
D) Going My Way

4. In Scrooge, Ronald Neame’s 1970 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Albert Finney was the first actor to attempt a musical portrayal of the miserly Ebenezer. Who played his spectral business partner, Jacob Marley, in the same film?

A) Michael Hordern
B) Laurence Olivier
C) John Gielgud
D) Alec Guinness

5. Arnold Schwarzenegger played Howard Langston, a father desperate to buy the year’s must-have Christmas toy for his son, in Jingle All the Way. What was the name of the elusive action figure he was trying to track down?

A) Rocket Man
B) Turbo Man
C) Lightning Man
D) Proton Man

6. One of the most controversial questions among Christmas movie fans is always: ‘Is Die Hard a Christmas film?’ Which of these other 1980s action thrillers was also famously set during the festive season?

A) Predator
B) Aliens
C) Lethal Weapon
D) Commando

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? The question itself has become a festive tradition. Image: Allstar/20TH CENTURY FOX

7. At the end of Home Alone, Kevin uses his older brother Buzz’s unconventional pet to terrify Harry and Marv, the notorious ‘Wet Bandits’ burglar team. What kind of animal was the pet?

A) A tarantula
B) A piranha fish
C) A scorpion
D) A rat

8. In The Muppet Christmas Carol, Michael Caine famously played Ebenezer Scrooge. But who in the same film played the part of A Christmas Carol’s author, Charles Dickens?

A) Kermit the Frog
B) Gonzo the Great
C) Fozzie Bear
D) Miss Piggy

9. During Joyeux Noel, Christian Carion’s 2005 film about the World War I Christmas Eve Armistice, members of which nation’s army did NOT take part in the temporary December ceasefire?

A) Russia
B) Germany
C) France
D) United Kingdom

Michael Caine with some of The Muppets. Image: Jim Henson Productions/Kobal/Shutterstock

10. At the conclusion of Elf, Santa Claus’s sleigh becomes powered by the Christmas spirit when New Yorkers and TV viewers are persuaded to sing along to which well-loved festive song?

A) Here Comes Santa Claus
B) I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
C) Santa Claus is Coming to Town
D) Zat You, Santa Claus?

11. In The Christmas Chronicles, we first meet Kurt Russell in the role of a very modern Santa Claus. Who portrays the equally savvy Mrs Claus in the film’s sequel?

A) Keira Knightley
B) Elle Macpherson
C) Eva Green
D) Goldie Hawn

12. One of the very earliest full-length Christmas films ever made, Babes in Toyland, starred Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and was released in 1934. By which alternative title has the movie since become known?

A) The Nutcracker
B) The March of the Wooden Soldiers
C) The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
D) The Waltz of the Snowflakes

Scroll down to see the answers to the quiz questions.