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49 free Black Holiday trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Black holiday trivia is its own canon: the films families rewatch every December (This Christmas, The Best Man Holiday, Almost Christmas, The Preacher's Wife, Friday After Next, Jingle Jangle), the songs that soundtrack them (Donny Hathaway's This Christmas, the Temptations' Silent Night, the Jackson 5 Christmas Album, Run-DMC's Christmas in Hollis, Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt, Boyz II Men, Whitney Houston), and the holidays created by and for Black Americans, Kwanzaa and Juneteenth. This quiz covers all three, with questions on casts and directors, chart facts and songwriters, the seven principles and the kinara, and the history of June 19th. The 46 Black holiday trivia questions run from easy crowd-pleasers for a family gathering to genuinely hard ones about release dates and songwriting credits, so it works for a Christmas dinner, a Kwanzaa celebration or a Juneteenth cookout. Every answer has been checked against documented film, music and historical sources rather than another trivia list.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The 2007 film This Christmas is named after a 1970 song by which soul singer?
Donny Hathaway
Donny Hathaway recorded 'This Christmas' in 1970, and the 2007 film borrows its title; Loretta Devine plays matriarch Ma'Dere Whitfield, with Idris Elba and Regina King among her six children.
Q 02Which singer plays 'Baby' Whitfield, the youngest sibling with a secret singing talent?
Chris Brown
Chris Brown plays Michael 'Baby' Whitfield, the youngest sibling, who has been hiding a singing ambition his mother discourages because their musician father abandoned the family.
Q 03Who wrote and directed The Best Man Holiday, the 2013 sequel to The Best Man?
Malcolm D. Lee
Malcolm D. Lee wrote and directed both The Best Man (1999) and The Best Man Holiday, reuniting the entire original cast, including Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut and Terrence Howard.
Q 04The Best Man Holiday was shot in which city in 2013?
Toronto
Toronto stood in for the film's East Coast settings when the sequel was shot there in 2013, ahead of its November 15 release.
Q 05Who wrote and directed Almost Christmas (2016), in which Danny Glover hosts his family?
David E. Talbert
David E. Talbert wrote and directed Almost Christmas, with Danny Glover, Gabrielle Union and Mo'Nique; Talbert later made the Netflix musical Jingle Jangle.
Q 06In Almost Christmas, Danny Glover's Walter Meyers is a retired what?
Automotive engineer
Automotive engineer is the profession Walter Meyers retired from; he gathers his four grown children for their first Christmas since his wife Grace died, trying to recreate her sweet potato pie.
Q 07The Preacher's Wife (1996) remakes a 1947 Cary Grant film about an angel helping which clergyman?
A bishop
A bishop is the clergyman in The Bishop's Wife (1947), where Cary Grant's angel Dudley aids Bishop Henry Brougham; in the remake Denzel Washington's Dudley helps Courtney B. Vance's Reverend Henry Biggs.
Q 08Who directed The Preacher's Wife?
Penny Marshall
Penny Marshall, the Laverne & Shirley star, directed The Preacher's Wife in 1996, having already directed Big, Awakenings and A League of Their Own.
Q 09Which Whitney Houston single from The Preacher's Wife soundtrack reached number four on the Hot 100?
I Believe in You and Me
'I Believe in You and Me', a cover of the Four Tops' 1983 song, was the lead single from The Preacher's Wife soundtrack and peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, the album's highest-charting single.
Q 10In Last Holiday (2006), Queen Latifah's Georgia Byrd works in which department of a New Orleans store?
Cookware
Cookware is Georgia Byrd's department at Kragen's store in New Orleans, a fitting post for a gifted home cook who dreams of opening her own restaurant.
Q 11Which TV chef's recipes does Georgia Byrd lovingly recreate in Last Holiday?
Emeril Lagasse
Emeril Lagasse is the chef whose recipes Georgia Byrd follows on TV; Lagasse himself appears in the film, and Georgia keeps a scrapbook of dreams labelled 'Possibilities'.
Q 12In Friday After Next, a robber dressed as whom breaks into Craig and Day-Day's apartment?
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is the disguise of the burglar who breaks into Craig and Day-Day's apartment, making off with the presents and the rent money owed to landlady Ms. Pearly.
Q 13What jobs do Craig and Day-Day take on Christmas Eve in Friday After Next?
Security guards
Q 21In which city was 'This Christmas' recorded in the autumn of 1970?
Chicago
Chicago, the singer's home base, is where 'This Christmas' was recorded in the autumn of 1970; the song only became a standard after its inclusion on Atlantic's 1991 Soul Christmas reissue.
Q 22Run-DMC's 1987 holiday single first appeared on which charity compilation?
A Very Special Christmas
A Very Special Christmas, the 1987 compilation that raised money for the Special Olympics, was where 'Christmas in Hollis' debuted alongside tracks by Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Madonna.
Q 23'Christmas in Hollis' samples 'Back Door Santa', a 1968 holiday song by which soul singer?
Clarence Carter
Security guards are what Craig and Day-Day become, patrolling a strip mall to earn back the stolen rent money; Ice Cube wrote all three Friday films and plays Craig opposite Mike Epps's Day-Day.
Q 14Netflix's 2020 musical Jingle Jangle stars Forest Whitaker as which toymaker?
Jeronicus
Jeronicus Jangle, played by Forest Whitaker, is the once-celebrated toymaker whose inventions are stolen by his apprentice Gustafson, played by Keegan-Michael Key.
Q 15Which network premiered A Diva's Christmas Carol (2000), with Vanessa L. Williams as Ebony Scrooge?
VH1
VH1 premiered A Diva's Christmas Carol in December 2000 as one of its original movies; Chilli from TLC plays Ebony's late bandmate Marli Jacob and Kathy Griffin the Ghost of Christmas Present.
Q 16Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas (2013) sends Madea to a fictional town in which state?
Alabama
Alabama is home to the fictional town of Bucktussle, where Madea accompanies Eileen to surprise Eileen's daughter Lacey; Larry the Cable Guy plays Lacey's father-in-law Buddy.
Q 17The 2013 film Black Nativity, with Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett, is based on a 1961 play by whom?
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes wrote Black Nativity, a gospel retelling of the Nativity first staged off-Broadway in 1961; Kasi Lemmons directed the film, with Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige and Nas in the cast.
Q 18Which rapper-actor plays J-Jizzy in The Perfect Holiday (2007), narrated by Queen Latifah?
Charlie Murphy
Charlie Murphy plays the rapper J-Jizzy, whose ex-wife Nancy (Gabrielle Union) falls for Morris Chestnut's Benjamin, a songwriter trying to pitch J-Jizzy a Christmas song.
Q 19Who plays the drag queen title role in Showtime's Holiday Heart (2000)?
Ving Rhames
Ving Rhames plays Holiday Heart, a drag performer who takes in Alfre Woodard's struggling mother Wanda and her daughter Niki, in a TV film directed by Robert Townsend.
Q 20'This Christmas' was co-written by its singer and which lyricist?
Nadine McKinnor
Nadine McKinnor wrote the lyrics to 'This Christmas' in the 1960s while working as a postal clerk, and the singer composed its music and recorded it in 1970.
Clarence Carter's 1968 'Back Door Santa' provides the opening riff sampled in 'Christmas in Hollis'; Hollis is the Queens neighbourhood where Run-DMC grew up.
Q 24Stevie Wonder's first Christmas album, Someday at Christmas, was released in which year?
1967
1967 saw the release of Someday at Christmas in November on Motown's Tamla label; the title track, written by Ron Miller and Bryan Wells, had been issued as a single the previous year.
Q 25Which blues singer and pianist wrote and recorded 'Please Come Home for Christmas' in 1960?
Charles Brown
Charles Brown co-wrote 'Please Come Home for Christmas' with Gene Redd and recorded it for King Records in 1960; the Eagles' 1978 cover reached the top 20 of the Hot 100.
Q 26Johnny Moore's Three Blazers recorded the 1947 original of which R&B holiday standard?
Merry Christmas Baby
'Merry Christmas Baby', written by Lou Baxter and Johnny Moore, was first recorded by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers in 1947 and was later covered by Otis Redding, Bruce Springsteen and many others.
Q 27In which year did Eartha Kitt first release 'Santa Baby'?
1953
1953 was the year Eartha Kitt recorded and released 'Santa Baby', written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer; Kitt performed it again in the 1954 film New Faces.
Q 28Nat King Cole first recorded 'The Christmas Song' in which year?
1946
1946 was when Nat King Cole first cut 'The Christmas Song' with the King Cole Trio, recording it twice that year, the second time with added strings; he re-recorded it in stereo in 1961.
Q 29'The Christmas Song' was written during a heatwave in July 1945 by Robert Wells and which singer?
Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé co-wrote 'The Christmas Song' with lyricist Robert Wells in about 40 minutes on a sweltering July day in 1945, after Wells jotted wintry lines to take his mind off the heat.
Q 30Which Motown team wrote the Jackson 5's "Give Love on Christmas Day", "I Want You Back" and "ABC"?
The Corporation
The Corporation was Motown's songwriting and production team of Freddie Perren, Fonce Mizell, Deke Richards and the label's founder, credited collectively so rival labels could not poach a star writer.