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Welcome to this year’s Christmas Quiz, which is open to anyone of all ages around the world.
There are three parts to this quiz! Every day, for twelve days, you will hear a short audio clip of John’s Christmas carols or arrangements, and here are the three steps you need to follow:
- Identify the carol
- Find the first letter of the first line of the lyrics of the whole carol, and make a note of it
- After twelve days, you will have twelve letters to rearrange into a Christmas-related word.
Fill in this form on Friday 19th December 11.59pm GMT time for a chance to win a signed copy of all twelve carols. Please avoid posting the answers here, or on social media, during the quiz as you’ll spoil the fun for everyone else (and possibly give the answers away!)
The answers will be posted on this page from Monday 22nd December, accompanied with a playlist of all the carols. Good luck!
Question 1
Remember: please do not post your answers in the comments! Use this answer form instead.
What is the title of the carol?
What is the first letter of the first line of the lyrics?
Keep a note of that letter and at the end of the quiz, unscramble all twelve letters and find the Christmas-related word.
Question 2
What is the title of the carol?
What is the first letter of the first line of the lyrics?
Keep a note of that letter and at the end of the quiz, unscramble the letters to find a Christmas-related word.
Question 3
Here is Day 3’s carol to identify.
Question 4
We hope you are enjoying the quiz so far. Here is Day 4’s audio.
Question 5
What is the title of the carol?
What is the first letter of the first line of the lyrics?
Keep a note of that letter and at the end of the quiz, unscramble all twelve letters and find the Christmas-related word.
Question 6
We are halfway through this year’s quiz!
Here is today’s audio clip
Question 7
What is the title of the carol?
What is the first letter of the first line of the lyrics of the whole carol?
Keep a note of that letter and at the end of the quiz, unscramble all twelve letters and find the Christmas-related word.
Question 8
Here is the audio for Day 8 of the quiz.
Top tip: The introduction to this piece has one word repeated – ignore that, and go for the first letter of the first word of the first full sentence of the whole carol!
Question 9
We hope you are enjoying the quiz so far. Three more to go…
Question 10
Here is the audio for Day 10. Thanks for playing!
Question 11
The penultimate audio clip of the quiz! Here is Day 11.
Question 12
It’s the final clip and the end of this year’s quiz! We hope you have had a lot of fun playing. Look out for the answers, which will be posted on this website on Monday 22nd December. Fill in this form and submit it by 11.59pm GMT time today – 19th December.
Looking forward to this
Thanks!!
Ah The bliss of a beautiful Carol by Sir John
Such a wonderful idea.
Christmas is a happy and beautiful time, but is also tinged with melancholic sadness of the days of lost innocence. This warm and wonderful carol always lifts my heart when heard again in December, but leaves me close to tears with its beauty. The descant at the end, that I used to sing as a treble, is as sublime a piece of music as you are likely to hear this, or any, Christmas. Thank you JR.
No spoilers please…
Such beautiful music to fill the holiday. I look fwd to each day bringing a new piece of beauty. Thank you for doing this. Colorado, USA, love your Sir John…….and so does Carnegie Hall in NYC.
It wouldn’t be Christmas without your music!!!! They are all so beautiful and meaningful!!! Thanks for this fun game!!!! So far have both of them
What a great idea! Let the festivities begin!!
Absolutely fantastic idea! Thank you. Has already introduced me to a not known piece on day two. Please do this every year.
Tantalised by the letters solved so far as to what the 12 letter word might be. Currently, I can’t think of any 12 letter word to do with Christmas, atm
Please clarify the instruction: “What is the first letter of the first line of the lyrics?”
Is it the first line of the actual carol or the presented excerpt?
It’s the first letter of the first word in the lyrics of the whole carol.
‘Find the first letter of the first line of the lyrics of the carol, and make a note of it’
So, as I understand it, it’s the very first letter of the word that’s sung in the whole carol. 😊
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That’s right, Wendy – the first letter of the first word of the lyrics of the whole carol.
Is the 12 letters just one word or can it be 2 words?
It’s just one word, Ruby.
Thank you. I have an idea what it could be now I have today’s letter. Have to see if the last 4 days fit. This is fun anyway.
What an enjoyable quiz this is! Having trouble with no. 9 though. Hmmm… On the other hand, this gives such a wonderful opportunity to listen to this choral repertoire, some of which I hadn’t heard before. Thank-you so much.
During my 30 plus years of running with a charity posing more like Santa than Jesus, John (and David) proved faithful in centering me on true meaning of the season with harmonies that transported me to higher heights. Thank you, John (and David).
Can I message you privately with a query about two answers? I don’t want to risk giving the game away here.
Hi Colin,
Thanks for your discretion. Yes, you can use the ‘contact us’ form on John’s website to ask your question. Good luck.
Team JR
Very many thanks for this – my wife and I greatly enjoyed it! Eagerly awaiting the answers on Monday. No 4 was hard – we only got it late on Friday evening, and not at all sure about 12 – we found a piece with the same music and same instrumentation, but couldn’t match the words, which in any case, didn’t seem very Christmassy! (Nice piece though.)
All the while I was waiting for Christ our Emmanuel to come up – my favourite since singing it under John’s baton in the RAH Christmas 2019. Up there with The Lord Bless You and Keep You, it deserves to be much more well known. At least I got our conductor to include it in our last carol concert before he retired.