Question Christmas Tune Acronym Quiz

Those who've been around the past couple of years will know that around this time of year, I unleash a Christmas Tune Acronym Quiz on an unsuspecting bunch of internet and real life aquaintances - each year's effort getting larger than the previous as I add more (often obscure) tunes to keep it challenging. This year is no exception with 200 tunes - including a couple of very obscure British novelty songs, a couple from a certain seasonal animated musical and a handful of instrumentals to boot. If you haven't encountered it before, as the name suggests there are 200 tunes in total, each with a prominent lyric 'encoded' as acronyms (e.g. AIAM = Away In A Manger) - if the title's not in the lyric, it'll be afterwards enclosed by square brackets, while on the downloadable versions, if the title forms part of the included lyrics (but not the entirety), it will be in bold text.

Or at least it should be if I've formatted everything correctly

Here's the online version (with space for people to initial their discoveries).

Here's the downloadable version in ods (OpenOffice / LibreOffice) format

Here's the downloadable version in xlsx (Excel 2007, 2010, 2013) format

Good luck

(Or would be more appropriate?)

This looks fun! I only know a handful of the more well known Christmas songs, but I can help get the effort started!


(By the way, if you want to turn this into a HolidayTune quiz, I know plenty of Hannukah songs you could add to the list! They're not as numerous as Christmas songs, but they're out there!)

There's now an "AddYourOwn!" tab...

Oh, and it's a bit early in the month, but I'll reshare the Cracker Joke Recycling Plant - share the pain!

Good fun! I'll be back to play more when I'm more awake.

Hey, do you know what happened? All the filled in song titles are gone, although the initials remain.

Yeah. Just noticed that myself. So much for trying to do it in multiple sessions.

Ah ha! It's been repaired. Thank you very much.

Yep. We have now officially exceeded my knowledge of Christmas songs. Good luck all!



(I'll add some Hanukkah songs later)

I logged in at 7:50pm GMT and spotted a suspicious lack of song titles, although the initials remained. Looking through the edit history (click on the "Last edit was made x minutes ago by anonymous" or "Last saved by x" text), someone deleted all the titles at 1:27pm GMT. I made a note of the entries that had been added since, reverted back to the last 'good' version (12:50pm GMT) then retrospectively added those titles that had been added since.

Several of the tunes were chosen through sneakily taking a photo of the contents of Christmas CDs on sale in the local supermarket while out shopping - needless to say, there are quite a lot that weren't added. In some cases, the song / carol has no connection with the season (e.g. among the carols, Ave Verum Corpus or The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended - among the traditional tunes I gave the Hallelujah Chorus a pass since while it's actually at the other end of Messiah, it's become associated with Christmas; similarly with the songs, Frankie Goes To Hollywood's The Power Of Love is less seasonal than many others, but the lyrics are chock full of supernatural elements [A force from above / Cleansing my soul] and the video is a Nativity; but songs that have no connection with the season at all other than their release date have generally been excluded - sorry East 17, but including sleigh bells in Stay Another Day isn't enough!)

There are quite a few related to the season I haven't added though, including a bunch of fairly obscure ones I've caught being played at a temporary outdoor ice rink near work (and identified with SoundHound) - how many of this lot do you recognise?

A Five Pound Box Of Money - Pearl Bailey
A Rootin' Tootin' Santa Claus - Tennessee Ernie Ford
Babby Sittin' Santa - Barry Richards
Boogie Woogie Santa Claus - Brian Seltzer
Chistmas Questions - Charles Brown
Dear Santa - Judy Brown
Dig That Crazy Santa Claus - Oscar McLollie and his Honey Jumpers
I Like a Sleighride (Jingle Bells) - Peggy Lee
I Want My Baby For Christmas - Jimmy Liggins
Jingle Jangle - The Penguins
Let's Make Christmas Merry, Baby - Amos Milburn
Little Jack Frost Get Lost - Dick Haymes
Mambo Santa Mambo - The Enchanters
Merry Christmas - The Cameos
Merry Twistmas - The Marcels
Must Be Santa - Tommy Steele
Reindeer Rock - The Sportsmen
Rock and Roll Christmas - Cordell Jackson
Rockin' Santa Claus - Moods
The Merriest - June Christy
Underneath the Tree - Kelly Clarkson

Obviously, if you add any of that lot, don't 'solve them yourselves but see if people in the various other corners of the 'net I've shared this quiz with can do so

A few others from the Christmas CDs (4x collections currently on sale), most of which I don't recognise. There are a heck of a lot of obscure Christmas tunes out there - you could probably quite easily compile a 24 hour playlist with no repeats (which would no doubt provide some relief for retail workers who often get lumbered with the same dozen songs repeated incessently!):

8 Days Of Christmas - Destiny's Child
All I Want For CHristmas Is New Year's Day - Hurts (what?!)
Bells Are Ringing - Mary Chapin Carpenter
Christmas Day - Dido
Christmas In Heaven - James Brown
Christmas In Hollis - Run DMC
Christmas Lights - Coldplay
Christmas Lullaby - Smokey Robinson and The Miracles
Christmas Rappin' - Kurtis Blow
Christmas Time - Backstreet Boys
Cool Yule - Bette Midler
Dear Santa (Bring Me A Man This Christmas) - The Weather Girls (<-- what - they weren't a one hit wonder?!)
December Song (I Dreamed Of Christmas) - George Michael
Do You Love Old Santa Claus - Diana Decker
Funny Little Snowman - Diana Day
Give Love On Christmas Day - Jackson 5
I Believe In Santa Claus - The Mills Brothers
I Don't Want To Spend One More Christmas Without You - *NSync
I'll Be Home - Meghan Trainor
I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus - Brenda Lee
I'm Sending A Letter To Santa Claus - Vera Lynn
It May Be Winter Outside (But In My Heart It's Spring) - Love Unlimited
It's Christmas - Modern Talking
It's Christmas Time Again - Jessica Simpson
It's Gonna Be A Cold, Cold Christmas - Dana
I Want To Come Home For Christmas - Marvin Gaye
Little Christmas Tree - Michael Jackson
Little Red Riding's Hood Christmas Tree - Rosemary Clooney
Little Snowman, Little Snowgirl - Mandy Miller
Love On Layaway - Gloria Estefan
Marshmallow World - Darlene Love
Merry Christmas Baby - James Brown
Merry, Merry Christmas - New Kids On The Block (not any more they aren't!)
Mrs. Santa Claus - Nat King Cole
My Christmas Tree - The Temptations
My Only Wish (This Year) - Britney Spears (!)
One More Sleep - Leona Lewis
One Wish (For Christmas) - Whitney Houston
Please Come Home For Christmas - Aaron Neville
Pretty Paper - Roy Orbison
Purple Snowflakes - Marvin Gaye
Senor Santa Claus - Jim Reeves
Shake Hands With Santa Claus - Louis Prima
Snow - Bring Crosby, Danny Kaye, Peggey Lee and Trudy Stevens
Someday At Christmas - The Temptations
Soon After Christmas - Stina Nordenstam
Suzy Snowflake - Rosemary Clooney
The Bells Of St. Mary - Bob B. Soxx and The Blue Jeans
The Best Christmas Of Them All - Shakin' Stevens
The Little Christmas Tree - Nat King Cole
The Little Fir Tree - Peter Brough and Archie Andrews
There's A Train Out For Dreamland - Nat King COle
(The Toys Gave A Party For) Poppa Santa Claus - Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters
This Christmas - Chris Brown
Walk Out To Winter - Aztec Camera
Winter World Of Love - Engelbert Humperdinck
Won't Be Long Before Christmas - Diana Ross and The Supremes
World Christmas - R Kelly

How do you decide which songs to include and which ones to skip?

You got two of my favorites - by Weird Al
Need to check my Bob Rivers Christmas albums to see which good ones you missed.

Arcanist Lupus wrote: How do you decide which songs to include and which ones to skip?

I started off with the reasonably popular ones, then aded a few parodies (which may not be so popular on this side of the pond, but still rack up the YouTube hits so must be reasonably popular Stateside), before finally looking at what else is included on Christmas albums (if it appeared on several and was at least tangentially related to the season [as opposed to being a generic any-time-of-the-year song that happened to chart at Christmas time], I included it) - until I reached 200, with a roughly even spread of songs and carols. Some songs that were on Christmas CDs but didn't make the 200 are in the list on the last page - several of which would be pretty obscure if you weren't around in the 1960s...

If you recognise any of that lot, feel free to encode it on the "Add Your Own!" tab.

Some of my favorite Bob Rivers parodies are:

All You Need is Elves
Come On And Worship Him
Didn't I Get This Last Year
He's So Jolly
I Am Santa Claus
I Came Upon A Roadkill Deer
It's The Most Fattening Time Of The Year
Santa Claus Is Fooling Around
Smells Like The Night Before christmas
Teddy The Red-Nosed Senator
The Chimney Song
The Twelve Pains of Christmas
There's A Santa Who Looks A Lot Like Elvis
There's Another Santa Claus
Who Put The Stump

So I like parodies. You got a problem with that?

No.

elrodw wrote: Some of my favorite Bob Rivers parodies are:

All You Need is Elves
Come On And Worship Him
Didn't I Get This Last Year
He's So Jolly
I Am Santa Claus
I Came Upon A Roadkill Deer
It's The Most Fattening Time Of The Year
Santa Claus Is Fooling Around
Smells Like The Night Before christmas
Teddy The Red-Nosed Senator
The Chimney Song
The Twelve Pains of Christmas
There's A Santa Who Looks A Lot Like Elvis
There's Another Santa Claus
Who Put The Stump

So I like parodies. You got a problem with that?

No. Yes. Maybe.. Consults with other inhabitants inside head. We'll get back on that once we discuss it over a meal. Now where is that Pat Boone record.

Nope Some of the 20 parodies were courtesy of Bob Rivers - there's also Weird Al, The Goons and the veryobscure one mentioned in the blurb at the top of the sheet.

Meanwhile, we're currently up to over 120 already solved - so next year's version might be pushing 250-300...
...and might include a column adjacent to "Initials" for an abbreviation of which bit of the internet the solver comes from (given I've shared this not only with you lot, but also my FB friends, a couple of different FB groups and G+).

Oh, and there's now a "League Table" tab, so you can see how well you're doing compared to everyone else at solving them - once people start solving the "Add Your Own!" songs, I'll add those to the League Table as well.

Have to admit I did some without putting my initials.

I'll channel my inner curmudgeon and publicly state that I don't care for Christmas music -- partly because it seems that for one whole month at least it dominates all the store muzak.

The last time I got mildly interested on it was when I found that there is a Jethro Tull Christmas album. Because, well, it's Jethro Tull, and if anybody can make that sound interesting, it's Ian Anderson. Well, I would be interested if Frank Zappa or Lou Reed did it too. But alas, those ships have sailed.

Those without initials I've tagged as 'Anon', so you may like to modify the ones you did as 'IB' or something...

Also don't forget you can fill / solve ones in the 'Add Your Own!' tab as well...

[Editing for courtesy rather than adding a new post, although it may not appear as updated...]

Progress seems to have stalled, so rather than look at the acronyms and think of a song that fits, try the opposite way round: look at the index card on any Christmas CDs you've dusted off, or your Christmas tune playlist, then see if the songs are in the quiz (it's usually first lines or titles).