Winter Wonderland
Christmas Mix-Up
Help Santa unscramble these words and then pick up your Lil' Elf Certificate!
(Highlight box under mixup for answer)
1: YESCNADNAC
2: IKOTSGNSC
3: AHTSCMISR
4: ACLSTUASNA
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5: UPORHDL
6: OFRYTS
7: HNOPERTOL
8: GLIHSE
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Click on the Elf below to receive your award!
Winter Wonderland
Christmas Trivia Challenge
To view answers, use the mouse to highlight the contents
in the box after each question
1. According to legend, why are candy canes shaped the way they are?
According to legend there was a candy maker who wanted to invent a candy that was a witness to Christ.
First of all, he used a hard candy because Christ is the rock of ages.This hard candy was shaped so that it would
resemble a “J” for Jesus or, turned upside down, a shepherd’s staff. He made it white to represent the purity of Christ.
Finally a red stripe was added to represent the blood Christ shed for the sins of the world, and three thinner red
stripes for the stripes He received on our behalf when the Roman soldiers whipped Him.
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2. Who wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” and in what year? 
3. What is January 6th called? 
Feast of the Epiphany (or Three Kings Day)
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4. Who was the first President to put up a Christmas tree in the White House? 
President Franklin Pierce - 14th President
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5. What is the origin and meaning of the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas? 
The Twelve Days of Christmas" was written in England as one of the "catechism songs" to help young
Catholics learn the tenets of their faith - a memory aid, when to be caught with anything in *writing*
indicating adherence to the Catholic faith could not only get you imprisoned, it could get you hanged, or
shortened by a head - or hanged, drawn and quartered, a rather peculiar and ghastly punishment I'm not aware
was ever practiced anywhere else. Hanging, drawing and quartering involved hanging a person by the neck until
they had almost, but not quite, suffocated to death; then the party was taken down from the gallows, and
disembowelled while still alive; and while the entrails were still lying on the street, where the executioners
stomped all over them, the victim was tied to four large farm horses, and literally torn into five parts -
one to each limb and the remaining torso.The songs gifts are hidden meanings to the teachings of the faith.
The "true love" mentioned in the song doesn't refer to an earthly suitor, it refers to God Himself. The "me"
who receives the presents refers to every baptized person. The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge which feigns injury to
decoy predators from her helpless nestlings, much in memory of the expression of Christ's sadness over the
fate of Jerusalem: "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered thee under my wings, as a hen does
her chicks, but thou wouldst not have it so..."
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Bonus: What do the symbols mean in the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas?
Bonus: The other symbols mean the following:
2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the "Pentateuch", which gives the history of
man's fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit,
the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the
Apostle's Creed
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