Christmas in the Netherlands
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Christmas in the Netherlands trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Christmas in the Netherlands is really a season with more than one peak. The big night for presents comes weeks before 25 December, when a white-bearded saint on a horse takes centre stage, and the Christmas holidays that follow are quieter, built around long dinners, candles and family. This quiz collects the fun facts people look for about a Dutch December: where the customs came from, what ends up on the table, which sweets appear in the shops, what the country watches and listens to between Christmas and New Year, and the local traditions that visitors rarely hear about. It is written for anyone curious about Dutch culture, for expats and language learners, and for teachers or hosts who want a Christmas-around-the-world round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the facts are easy to read aloud.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Dutch children are told that Sinterklaas sails north each November from his home in which warm country?
Spain
Spain may have entered the story through Bari, the Italian city holding the saint's relics, which later belonged to the Spanish Kingdom of Naples.
Q 02Instead of hanging up a stocking, what do Dutch children set by the fireplace for Sinterklaas to fill overnight?
A shoe
A shoe is set out, in modern homes often beside a radiator or a door, and by morning it holds candy or a small present.
Q 03Which American city, founded as a Dutch colonial town, is credited with turning Sinterklaas into Santa Claus?
New York
New York is where John Pintard's 1810 pamphlet urged making Saint Nicholas the city's patron saint and printed an old Dutch Sinterklaas poem.
Q 04Sinterklaas traditionally gives each Dutch child a large chocolate version of what personal detail?
Their own initial
Their own initial arrives in solid chocolate, and makers thin the wide letters so a W holds no more chocolate than an I.
Q 05Which kind of structure in the Dutch town of IJsselstein is lit every December as a giant Christmas tree?
A broadcast tower
A broadcast tower, the 367-metre Gerbrandy Tower, has worn the lights each winter since 1992, and Guinness named it the tallest Christmas tree in 1998.
Q 06Dutch workers get a public holiday on 26 December called tweede kerstdag, a name that translates as what?
Second Christmas Day
Second Christmas Day follows eerste kerstdag, 'first Christmas day', on the 25th, and the Netherlands treats both as public holidays.
Q 07At gourmetten, a favourite Dutch Christmas dinner, how does each guest at the table cook small portions of food?
In tiny individual pans
In tiny individual pans heated at the table, everyone fries meat, fish or vegetables; two chefs brought the idea over from Switzerland in the late 1970s.
Q 08Which Queen song usually tops the Top 2000, the Dutch radio countdown that runs from Christmas to New Year's Eve?
Bohemian Rhapsody
Bohemian Rhapsody won the first listener vote in 1999 and has lost the top spot in only a handful of years since.
Q 09On 5 December, each Dutch Sinterklaas gift traditionally comes with what handwritten extra about the recipient?
A humorous poem
A humorous poem comes with each present, usually teasing the receiver about well-known bad habits.
Q 10Which deep-fried dough balls, dusted with powdered sugar, do the Dutch traditionally eat on New Year's Eve?
Oliebollen
Oliebollen means 'oil spheres', and the earliest known recipe for their forerunner appears in a Dutch cookbook of 1667.
Q 11Saint Nicholas, the bishop behind Sinterklaas, served at Myra, an ancient town in which present-day country?
Turkey
Turkey holds the ruins of Myra, where the Greek bishop served in the 4th century; an expedition from Bari in Italy seized part of his remains in 1087.
Q 12Sinterklaas's television horse Ozosnel, who took over from Amerigo in 2019, has a name that means what?
Oh so fast
Oh so fast echoes a passage in a well-known Sinterklaas song, and the horse arrived when Amerigo was said to have been pensioned off.
Q 13In the Dutch region of Twente, Christmas is announced by blowing which instrument made from a split tree trunk?
A horn
A horn, the midwinterhoorn, was traditionally hung in a well so the wet wood swelled and sealed its seams, and it sounds from Advent until Epiphany.
Q 21The helpers of Sinterklaas often appear on Dutch television with smudged faces, explained as soot from what?
Chimneys
Chimneys are how the helpers are said to deliver the gifts, and the smudged figures are known as roetveegpieten, 'soot-smudge Petes'.
Q 22Saint Nicholas, the saint behind Sinterklaas, is the patron saint of which Dutch city, where a basilica bears his name?
Amsterdam
Amsterdam has Saint Nicholas as patron of both the city and its basilica, even though the city's shield shows three St Andrew's crosses.
Q 23In which country is the horse of Sinterklaas named Slecht Weer Vandaag, a phrase meaning 'bad weather today'?
Belgium
Belgium also hands out the presents later: children there wait until the morning of 6 December.
Q 14Unlike German stollen, where it is optional, the Dutch Christmas loaf kerststol always contains which sweet filling?
Almond paste
Almond paste is the must-have, and a German baker in the Dutch capital is said to have made the loaf popular with newspaper adverts from 1870.
Q 15Which Dutch painter's 17th-century canvas 'The Feast of Saint Nicholas' shows a sobbing boy left without presents?
Jan Steen
Jan Steen set the scene at home on 5 December: a little girl clutches her new doll while one brother laughs at the other's tears.
Q 16In the Dutch radio charity drive Serious Request, held the week before Christmas, where are three DJs locked up?
In a glass house
In a glass house on a city square the DJs live on air around the clock for donations; the first one went up in Utrecht in 2004.
Q 17Gouda's December candlelight festival centres on a tall Christmas tree given yearly by a sister city in which country?
Norway
Norway's town of Kongsberg sends the tree, and Gouda's candlelit festival, first held in 1956, is the oldest of its kind in the Netherlands.
Q 18Dutch kerstkransjes are small biscuits often hung in the Christmas tree; their name comes from which shape?
A wreath
A wreath is the shape, and the little rings are baked as biscuits with sugar pearls, moulded in chocolate or made from meringue.
Q 19An 1850 picture book by teacher Jan Schenkman is credited with first showing Sinterklaas arriving aboard what?
A steamboat
A steamboat was an exciting modern invention in 1850, and Schenkman's book also introduced a song about its arrival that became a Dutch standard.
Q 20Sinterklaas, unlike Santa in his floppy cap, wears which red headdress to match his cape and ruby ring?
A mitre
A mitre shows that he is a bishop, and he also carries a gold-coloured crosier, a ceremonial shepherd's staff with a curled top.
Q 24Folklorists including Jacob Grimm compared Sinterklaas's rooftop rides to the Wild Hunt led by which Germanic god?
Odin
Odin, known to continental Germanic peoples as Wodan, was said to ride the eight-legged horse Sleipnir through the air with his two ravens.
Q 25Which spiced Dutch biscuit, a Sinterklaas favourite, is shaped in carved moulds and sold abroad as windmill cookies?
Speculaas
Speculaas owes its flavour to cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, which Dutch traders shipped from Asia in bulk from the 17th century.
Q 26How do the helpers of Sinterklaas traditionally hand out kruidnoten, small spiced cookies, at his arrival parade?
Thrown into the crowd
Thrown into the crowd was the old custom, but over hygiene worries helpers at many parades now press a handful into each child's hand instead.
Q 27What are decemberzegels, a seasonal product sold across the Netherlands every winter since 1987?
Discounted postage stamps
Discounted postage stamps cut the price of sending mail of up to 50 grams within the Netherlands in December and the first days of January.
Q 28What is a kerstpakket, which many Dutch employers give to every member of staff each December?
A hamper of gifts
A hamper of gifts usually holds luxury foods plus one lasting present, and the custom grew out of farmers feeding their servants at Christmas.
Q 29Het Sinterklaasjournaal, a Dutch children's series aired every year since 2001, follows the saint in what format?
A news bulletin
A news bulletin, entirely made up, reports each day on what Sinterklaas and his helpers get up to during their stay in the Netherlands.
Q 30The Dutch city of Deventer dresses its oldest streets in Victorian style each December to honour which novelist?
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens characters by the hundred, Scrooge and Oliver Twist among them, are played by volunteers on the weekend before Christmas.