The 2023 Country Life Editor's Christmas Quiz

Best of luck to you — we'll publish the answers at 8am on Boxing Day, 26 December.

So that was 2023

1) What type of creature was Thor, who made New Year’s appearances in North Yorkshire and Northumberland before departing for Iceland?

2) For what reason was Rishi Sunak fined by Lancashire Police?

3) Which locomotive celebrated its centenary with a UK tour?

4) Protestors from which activist group disrupted events, including the World Snooker Championship, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and the Ashes?

5) At the crowning of Charles III and Queen Camilla, the royal couple sat on thrones recycled from whose coronation?

6) Which chocolate bar formed part of a trial of recyclable-paper wrappers in selected Tesco stores?

7) Where did Sir Elton John perform his final UK concert as part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour?

8) According to the Met Office, which month was the UK’s hottest on record?

9) Royal Mail launched a drone delivery service for which archipelago off Scotland?

10) To which country did England lose the FIFA Women’s World Cup?

11) Which Oscar-winning British actor announced their retirement at the age of 90?

12) Which UK country became the first to ban the use of snares and glue traps for pest control?

A right royal affair

1) Who wrote the first Royal Christmas Broadcast, delivered by George V?

2) At which church does the Royal Family traditionally attend the Christmas Day morning service?

3) When does the Royal Family exchange Christmas presents?

4) What gifts did George V, George VI and Elizabeth II all give to their staff at Christmas?

5) How many Christmas trees are put up in the Marble Hall at Buckingham Palace?

Fa la la la la

Name the carol from the lyric

1) Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?

2) The holly bears a bark as bitter as any gall

3) May you beautifully rhyme your evetime song, you singers

4) I ask thee to stay close by me forever and love me, I pray

5) And his shelter was a stable and his cradle was a stall

Say what you see

British royal palaces ancient and modern

With all the trimmings

1) When making mince pies, in which direction should you stir the mince meat for good luck?

2) Market Drayton, Shropshire, is famous for being the home of which foodstuff?

3) The swede is a cross between which two other vegetables?

4) From which country does Christmas Eve’s Feast of the Seven Fishes originate?

5) A marron glacé is a candied what?

The holly and the ivy

1) The Ilex genus consists of which plants?

2) The names ‘mislin bush’, ‘kiss-and-go’ and ‘churchman’s greeting’ might all be used to describe what?

3) How many species of ivy are native to the UK?

4) Wakehurst Gardens in Ardingly, West Sussex, claims to be home to the UK’s tallest living what?

5) Poinsettias are native to which country?

The season of goodwill on screen

1) In the film It’s a Wonderful Life, what happens each time a bell rings?

2) In Home Alone, by what collective nickname do burglars Harry and Marv like to be known?

3) What was the title of the 2012 sequel to the 1982 animation The Snowman?

4) In Love Actually, what instrument does schoolboy Sam learn to impress his crush?

5) In which decade was White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby, released?

All shook up

Solve these festive anagrams

1) Amber gardening

2) Off the sane pest

3) Knife scanner

4) Drastic charms

5) Fit garishly

Dearly departed

Can you name these famous people who died in 2023?

1) Countryside author of Akenfield, a portrait of a Suffolk village (aged 100)

2) First woman speaker of the House of Commons (93)

3) Astrologer who predicted National Lottery winners (80)

4) Comedian and television presenter who loved dogs (67)

5) Swinging Sixties fashion designer known for short skirts (93)

6) Broadcaster with an eponymous BBC talkshow (88)

7) National Theatre actor and the second Dumbledore (82)

8) 1966 World Cup-winning footballer (86)

Flutter by, butterfly

Can you identify these six British butterflies?

Christmas on the page

1) In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which of the children is first to discover Narnia?

2) How many ghosts appear in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol?

3) Who is credited with writing the 1823 poem A Visit from St Nicholas?

4) In How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, how many sizes too small was the Grinch’s heart?

5) To whom did J. R. R. Tolkien write his Letters from Father Christmas (or The Father Christmas Letters)?

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

1) According to the much-loved fairy tale, who lived in a gingerbread house?

2) Which saint’s feast day is celebrated on December 27?

3) How much snow needs to fall on December 25 for the Met Office to declare a white Christmas?

4) Which was the first company to use Father Christmas in an advertising campaign?

5) What is ‘merry Christmas’ in Spanish?

6) Which English king was crowned on Christmas Day?

7) In which part of the world did eggnog originate?

8) What do we call a male turkey in the UK?

9) In what year was the Queen’s Speech first televised?

10) How many times does the number one feature on an Advent calendar in total?