Christmas
This plant is traditionally hung during Christmas for kissing.
What is Mistletoe
This planet in our solar system is commonly known as the Red Planet.
What is Mars
This individual served as the first President of the United States.
Who is George Washington
This is the name of the snowman who dreams of summer in Frozen.
Who is Olaf
This term describes a word that reads the same forward and backward.
What is a palindrome
This city is the capital of France.
What is Paris
This common food never spoils and has been found edible in ancient tombs.
What is honey
This is the vacation destination of the McCallister family in Home Alone.
What is Paris
This gas is absorbed by plants during photosynthesis.
What is carbon dioxide
This year marked the fall of the Berlin Wall.
What is 1989
This is the school attended by Harry Potter.
What is Hogwarts
This term refers to words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings.
What is a homophone
This river runs through the city of London.
What is the River Thames
This animal can sleep with one half of its brain at a time.
What is a dolphin
(Also acceptable: whales or certain birds)
These are what chestnuts are doing in the opening line of a famous Christmas song.
What is roasting on an open fire
This part of a cell contains most of its genetic material.
What is the nucleus
This ancient civilization constructed Machu Picchu.
Who were the Inca
This is the name of Simba’s father in The Lion King.
Who is Mufasa
This letter is the most frequently used in English text.
What is E
This U.S. state is known as “The Sunshine State.”
What is Florida
This fruit floats in water and is therefore often found washed up on tropical beaches.
What is a coconut
This is the first name of the main character in A Christmas Carol.
What is Ebenezer
This term describes animals that regulate and maintain a constant internal body temperature.
What are endotherms
This trade route connected China with Europe and the Mediterranean world.
What is the Silk Road
This coffee shop is a central hangout location in Friends.
What is Central Perk?
This mythological figure solved the riddle of the Sphinx.
Who is Oedipus
This desert is the largest hot desert in the world.
What is the Sahara Desert
This everyday object was originally invented to keep people warm before being used decoratively.
What is wallpaper
This European country is credited with popularizing the modern Christmas tree tradition.
What is Germany
This is the term for the point in an orbit when an object is closest to Earth.
What is perigee
This 1215 document limited the power of the English monarchy and influenced modern constitutional law.
What is the Magna Carta
This 1999 film features the famous line, “I see dead people.”
What is The Sixth Sense
This literary device refers to an indirect reference to a person, event, or work outside the text.
What is an allusion
This mountain range separates Europe from Asia in Russia.
What are the Ural Mountains
This scientific term describes the fear of long words — ironically, it is itself very long.
What is hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
This author is most commonly credited with writing “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Who is Clement Clarke Moore
This mathematical constant, approximately equal to 2.71828, is the base of natural logarithms.
Log-a-rithm; a quantity representing the power to which a fixed number (the base) must be raised to produce a given number.
What is e (Euler’s number)
This 1555 agreement helped establish the principle that rulers could choose their state’s religion.
What is the Peace of Augsburg
This fictional language is used in the inscription on the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings.
What is the Black Speech of Mordor
This rhetorical device involves repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
What is anaphora
This country has the greatest number of natural lakes in the world.
What is Canada
This phenomenon causes astronauts to grow slightly taller while in space.
What is spinal decompression due to microgravity
(“Spinal elongation in microgravity” also acceptable)