Holiday Trivia Answers #1-15

Here are the answers to the first 15 questions. More answers a week from now.

 Question One: Why is the feast day of St. Nicholas of Myra celebrated on December 6th?
     b. It was the day he died.
  (They don't know what day he was born.)

Question Two: Hanukkah begins each year
   b) on the 25th day of Kislev.
(The fact that it's dated on a lunar calendar means that it doesn't always coincide with the Copernican one.)

 Question Three: What year did the perennial Rankin-Bass special Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer first appear on TV?
     c. 1964
(Who didn't know this?  I remember watching it at Cindy Ryan's house in 1964.  She was eating a liverwurst sandwich.)

 Question Four: Who designed the first Christmas card, and when?
     a. John Callcott Horsley, 1843
(When I mentioned this question to John, he came up with the Hallmark gag all over again.)

 Question Five: Which of the following songs did not appear on a Beatles Fan Club Christmas record?
     d. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reggae
 (This title was a Paul McCartney B-side. Yes, the Beatles really did sing Please Don't Bring Your Banjo Back. It's wonderful nonsense.)

Question Six: Who of the following has not starred as Ebenezer Scrooge?
      d. Bill Murray
(he played a Scrooge-like character, but not Ebenezer Scooge himself.)

Question Seven: In southern Italy, presents are taken out of
      b. the Urn of Fate
 (I suspect a kind of "luck of the draw" implication on this one.)

Question Eight: A traditional Christmas dinner in Australia is sometimes
     b. a picnic
 (or, as Sara says, a barbecue.  December is the beginning of summer there.)

Question Nine: Who provided the music for A Charlie Brown Christmas?
     d. Vince Guaraldi Trio
 (Where the heck did I put that CD?)

Question Ten: According to Irish superstition, leaving a loaf of bread on the table after Christmas Eve dinner
    a. ensures a supply of bread for the coming year.
(The other answers weren't even superstitions.)

Question Eleven: What was the name of the group behind the first recording of Do They Know It's Christmas?
     b. Band Aid
(It's a sort of a pun, you see.)

Question Twelve: The season of Advent is associated with all of the following except
     a. matches
(Although matches are generally useful for lighting candles, Advent wreaths usually aren't lit directly by matches.)

Question Thirteen: At the end of a Christmas story that sends the great detective on a literal goose chase, Sherlock Holmes remarks that it's "the season...
      c. of forgiveness."
(Wasn't that nice of him?)

Question Fourteen: Which of these shows never had an episode with their take on A Christmas Carol?
    c. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy's only Christmas episode was mostly about Angel's Christmas death wish. The only ghosts of Christmas Past were mind games provided by The First, and there was definitely no Ghost of Christmas Present or Christmas Future.

Question Fifteen: Who wrote a satirical list of "The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time?"
     c. John M. Scalzi, published by National Lampoon
 Yup, it's our own John Scalzi. Check  it out!

That's it for now!

Karen