60 Christmas riddles for adults, with answers
Christmas riddles are short holiday puzzles with one clever answer hidden in the wording. Here are 60 original ones with answers, from easy to hard, plus a 20-minute riddle round for the office party. Use the riddle cards to play them on a shared screen.
Riddle 1 · EasyI count down to the big day one little door at a time, and there's a surprise behind each one. What am I?
A good Christmas riddle is fair: hard to see at first, obvious the second you hear the answer. Every riddle here is new and has one clear answer, folded away until you tap it. With a team talking each one through, plan on three or four riddles per 10 minutes; as a quick-fire round, 10 easy ones fit in that time. About a quarter are about snow and winter, so they work for people who don’t celebrate Christmas too.
15 easy Christmas riddles
Warm-ups most people solve in under 20 seconds. Start here with a group that hasn't played before.
1. I count down to the big day one little door at a time, and there's a surprise behind each one. What am I?
Show answer
An advent calendar. Most have 24 doors, one for each day from December 1 to Christmas Eve.
2. I hang by the fireplace empty all month and wake up full on one morning. What am I?
Show answer
A stocking. It goes up early in December and gets filled the night before Christmas.
3. I cover every present, I'm torn off in seconds, and I end the day in a big bag on the floor. What am I?
Show answer
Wrapping paper. All that taping for about three seconds of fame.
4. I'm built in an afternoon, I wear someone's old scarf, and I shrink a little every sunny day. What am I?
Show answer
A snowman. The sun melts him a bit at a time.
5. I have a smile made of icing and buttons I can't undo. Bite my head off and I keep smiling. What am I?
Show answer
A gingerbread person. Icing smile, candy buttons and no complaints.
6. I'm shaped like a hook, striped red and white, and I taste like peppermint. What am I?
Show answer
A candy cane. Hang it on the tree or eat it: your call.
7. I climb onto the roof every December, hang from the gutters and blink all night without getting tired. What am I?
Show answer
Christmas lights. Strings of lights along the roofline.
8. I'm round and green, I hang on the front door, and I have no beginning and no end. What am I?
Show answer
A wreath. A circle has no start and no finish.
9. I'm a tiny six-sided star that falls from the sky and disappears on a warm mitten. What am I?
Show answer
A snowflake. Snow crystals grow with six sides because of the way water molecules fit together as ice.
10. I'm a glass ball with a whole town inside, and every time you shake me, it snows. What am I?
Show answer
A snow globe. The snow is little flakes floating in water.
11. Two people pull me at once, I go off with a snap, and there's a paper crown inside. What am I?
Show answer
A Christmas cracker. A British tradition: pull it open for a snap, a paper hat, a small gift and a joke.
12. I'm hot, sweet and brown, and small white pillows float on top of me until they melt. What am I?
Show answer
Hot chocolate. The pillows are marshmallows.
13. I have two runners but I never run, and in the stories I'm pulled across the sky by reindeer. What am I?
Show answer
Santa's sleigh. Runners are the long blades a sleigh slides on.
14. Smoke goes up me all winter, and one night a year, someone is said to come down. What am I?
Show answer
A chimney. Santa's front door, according to the stories.
15. I'm round and shiny and hang from a branch, but I'm no fruit, and if you drop me, I might shatter. What am I?
Show answer
A Christmas ornament. The branch belongs to the tree, and glass ornaments break.
Want a host to run the holiday puzzles?
A riddle round fills 20 minutes. For the party itself, a hosted holiday escape game strings an hour of riddles and puzzles into one story, with a live host who gives the hints and keeps every team moving. It works for remote and in-office guests on one call, and you prep nothing in a busy December. Hosted games book about 2 weeks ahead.
Live-hosted, about an hour, on Zoom (Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request). Today’s prices:
Elf Escape ChallengeStarting at $34 USD / person
Christmas Trivia PartyStarting at $34 USD / person
Holiday Fun & GamesStarting at $39 USD / person
15 “What am I?” Christmas riddles
Medium riddles with two or three clues. Read them slowly, one clue at a time, and let teams guess after each.
16. I have a trunk but no elephant, needles but no thread, and a star but no sky. What am I?
Show answer
A Christmas tree. Every clue is a part of the tree.
17. On Christmas Eve I'm the most wanted thing in the house, and everyone is hunting for my end. What am I?
Show answer
A roll of tape. Anyone who has wrapped gifts late at night knows the search for where the tape starts.
18. I ride along inside a present, hidden, and I'm only useful if the gift was a miss. What am I?
Show answer
A gift receipt. It lets someone swap the gift without seeing the price.
19. I sit on top of a present looking fancy. Pull one of my tails and I fall apart. What am I?
Show answer
A bow. A ribbon bow comes undone when you pull one end.
20. I'm thin, silver and sparkly. You toss me over the branches in December, and you'll still find me under the couch in July. What am I?
Show answer
Tinsel. It gets everywhere and leaves slowly.
21. I'm given every year, I last for months, and people joke that I'm the same one from last year. What am I?
Show answer
A fruitcake. Dense, full of dried fruit and famous for keeping a long time.
22. People wear me once a year on purpose. I might light up or jingle, and the worse I look, the better my chance of winning a prize. What am I?
Show answer
An ugly holiday sweater. The ugliest sweater contest is a party staple.
23. I grow down instead of up, I'm sharpest at the bottom, and I shrink when the sun comes out. What am I?
Show answer
An icicle. Meltwater drips, freezes and builds downward from the roof.
24. I have blades but cut nothing, and I only work on water that's frozen solid. What am I?
Show answer
Ice skates. The blades glide on the ice.
25. I have one room for your thumb and one big room for all the rest. What am I?
Show answer
A mitten. The four fingers share one pocket.
26. I'm a kind of deer, and in my family both the males and the females grow antlers. What am I?
Show answer
A reindeer. Reindeer, called caribou in North America, are the only deer whose females usually grow antlers too.
27. I'm the top of the world, but there's no land under me, only floating sea ice. Where am I?
Show answer
The North Pole. The geographic North Pole sits in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.
28. I'm mailed in December, I stand up on a shelf, and I say nearly the same few words in a hundred different handwritings. What am I?
Show answer
A holiday card. Season's greetings, signed by everyone.
29. I'm a log you burn on purpose in winter, and in France I'm also a cake. What am I?
Show answer
A Yule log. The bûche de Noël is a rolled sponge cake decorated to look like a log.
30. I'm the shortest day of the year north of the equator, and every day after me gets a little longer. What am I?
Show answer
The winter solstice. It falls around December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere.
Want a whole hour of puzzles like these? A host runs a virtual escape room for your team on video, with the clues and hints ready to go.
15 funny Christmas riddles
Pun riddles where the right reaction is a groan. All clean, and most of them land best at the office party.
31. Why do snowflakes make great teammates?
Show answer
Alone they melt. Together they can shut down a whole city. A snow day is the ultimate group project.
32. Which month does every Christmas tree dread?
Show answer
January. That's when it gets kicked to the curb.
33. Why are old strings of Christmas lights terrible teammates?
Show answer
When one goes out, the whole strand quits. On older strands, one burned-out bulb could darken the whole string.
34. Why do snowmen hate video calls?
Show answer
Everyone keeps telling them they're frozen. A frozen screen, a frozen snowman.
35. What do you call a holiday sweater that lights up, plays music and has a pom-pom?
Show answer
Overqualified. It does more than most sweaters ever will.
36. What did the gift card say to the wrapping paper?
Show answer
“Relax, I fit in an envelope.” Gift cards are the one present that needs no wrapping.
37. Why does the fruitcake get invited to every party?
Show answer
Seniority. It's been around longer than anyone. Fruitcake keeps for months.
38. What do you call a gingerbread house with all the candy picked off?
Show answer
A fixer-upper. Somebody always eats the roof first.
39. Why did the present ask for a longer meeting?
Show answer
It had a lot to unwrap. Unpack, unwrap: same idea.
40. Why did the Christmas tree need a manager?
Show answer
It had too many branches. Branches on a tree, branch offices at work.
41. What did the ornament say during the longest meeting of the year?
Show answer
“Just hang in there.” Ornaments are experts at hanging.
42. Why did the wreath never get lost?
Show answer
It always came full circle. A wreath is one big circle.
43. Why did the snowman get the corner office?
Show answer
He kept a cool head in every crisis. He can't do it any other way.
44. Why was the elf so good at the help desk?
Show answer
He could wrap up any ticket. Elves wrap things for a living.
45. What gets touched by everyone at the office party, though nobody admits it?
Show answer
The thermostat. Every office has a quiet thermostat war in December.
Planning the whole party, not just the games? See our virtual holiday party ideas with live prices.
15 hard Christmas riddles for adults
Wordplay, logic and a little math. Give teams two minutes and a pen for each. The reasoning is under every answer.
46. Read me forward and I sit on top of the tree. Read me backward and I'm the pests in the attic where the decorations are kept. What am I?
Show answer
STAR. Star spelled backward is rats.
47. I'm a song people sing door to door in December. Rearrange my letters and I'm found on a reef. What am I?
Show answer
CAROL. Carol and coral use the same five letters.
48. I fall in winter. Take away my first letter and I become the present. What am I?
Show answer
SNOW. Snow without the S is now, and now is the present.
49. Add one letter to the front of Santa's helper and you get someone who goes everywhere you go. Who is it?
Show answer
Yourself. S plus ELF spells SELF.
50. A winter ride is hiding in this sentence: “The tour bus led the parade down Main Street.” Find it.
Show answer
Sled. Read across the gap in “bus led.”
51. A tree is hiding in this sentence: “The host will spin every wheel twice.” Find it.
Show answer
Pine. Read across the gap in “spin every.”
52. A string of lights blinks red, green, gold, red, green, gold, and so on. What color is the 100th bulb?
Show answer
Red. Every third bulb is gold, so bulb 99 is gold and bulb 100 starts the pattern again.
53. Five coworkers each send a holiday card to every other coworker. How many cards are mailed?
Show answer
20. Each of the 5 sends 4 cards. It isn't 10, because every pair swaps two cards, not one.
54. At the party, everyone clinks cocoa mugs with everyone else exactly once, and you count 45 clinks. How many people are there?
Show answer
10. Ten people make 10 times 9, divided by 2, which is 45 pairs.
55. A snowman is made of three balls. Each ball is half as tall as the one below it, and the whole snowman is 7 feet tall. How tall is the bottom ball?
Show answer
4 feet. 4 + 2 + 1 = 7.
56. Christmas Day 2026 falls on a Friday. What day of the week is New Year's Day 2027?
Show answer
Friday. January 1 comes exactly seven days after December 25.
57. Four coworkers draw names for a gift swap, and nobody draws their own. Dee drew Ben. Cal didn't draw Ana. Whose name did Ana draw?
Show answer
Cal. Someone drew Ana, and it wasn't Dee or Cal, so it was Ben. That leaves Ana and Cal to draw Cal and Dee, and Cal can't draw himself, so Cal drew Dee and Ana drew Cal.
58. Two coworkers text each other “Happy New Year!” at the very same moment. One sends it on December 31 and the other on January 1. How?
Show answer
They live in different time zones. At midnight on January 1 in Tokyo, it's still 10 a.m. on December 31 in New York.
59. A coworker says, “I spend every Christmas at the beach, and I've never left my home country.” Where could she live?
Show answer
Somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, like Australia. December falls in summer south of the equator.
60. Priya, Sam and Lou wear holiday sweaters: one red, one green, one striped. Priya's isn't red or green. Sam's isn't red. Who is wearing red?
Show answer
Lou. Priya has the striped one, Sam isn't in red so Sam has green, and that leaves red for Lou.
Team more into facts than puzzles? Christmas Trivia Party is an hour of holiday movie, music and tradition rounds with a live host.
A 20-minute Christmas riddle game for the office party
Three rounds that get harder, using riddles from the lists above. A team can score up to 26 points. Set up takes 2 minutes.
- Split into teams of 4 to 6. Mix departments so the quiet riddle solvers end up on different teams. On video, give each team its own breakout room or private chat.
- Give each team paper and one pen. One scribe writes the answers, so the team has to agree before anything goes down.
- Pick one reader. The reader keeps score and opens the riddle cards at the top of this page, or reads from the list with the answers folded away.
Round 1: Warm-up
5 minutes · 5 riddles · 1 point each
Read all five, one after another. Teams write their answers, and you reveal them together at the end.
Round 2: Clue by clue
6 minutes · 4 riddles · 3, 2 or 1 points
Read one clue at a time. A team can call out after any clue: 3 points after the first clue, 2 after the second, 1 after the full riddle. A wrong guess sits that team out for the rest of that riddle.
Round 3: Stumpers
7 minutes · 3 riddles · 3 points each
Two minutes per riddle, pens out. Teams hand in or send their answer when time is up, and you read the reasoning as you reveal it.
Tied at the end? Read riddle 47 aloud. The first team to say the right answer takes the game. To play again next year, swap in riddles from the same groups.
In the office, hybrid or on video
- In the office: print the round's riddle numbers on one card for the reader and give every team a sheet of paper. Teams call out by standing up or ringing a desk bell.
- Hybrid: pair each table in the room with one or two remote people in a private chat, so every team has someone in both places.
- On video: share the riddle cards, have teams answer in a private chat to the reader, and use the raise-hand button for the clue-by-clue round.
- In a team channel: post one riddle a day until the break, collect answers by direct message and reveal each one the next morning.
Over about 50 people, one reader can’t hear every team. A host-run virtual game show splits a big group into teams with a scoreboard and keeps everyone playing.
More holiday puzzles and games
Want riddles all year? Our riddles for adults has 120 more, and the riddles for work suit a weekly team meeting. For a bigger puzzle, build a Christmas escape room yourself. Teams that like guessing more than solving can play our Christmas guessing games or the Christmas emoji quiz, and facts fans get our Christmas trivia.
