Christmas Catchphrase

Pigs in Blankets

Also accepted: Pigs in a blanket, Pigs in blanket

Fun fact: In the UK and Ireland, pigs in blankets are small sausages wrapped in bacon, while in the US the name usually means a sausage in pastry. A 2019 Tesco survey found more shoppers planned to serve them than any other side dish, Yorkshire pudding included.

Mistletoe

Also accepted: Mistle toe

Fun fact: Mistletoe is a hemiparasite: it photosynthesises but taps its host tree for water and nutrients through a structure called a haustorium. The name comes from older mistle plus Old English tan, a twig.

Secret Santa

Fun fact: Where people say Kris Kringle or Kris Kindle instead, the name is a corruption of Christkindl, the Austrian gift-bringer whose name refers to the Christ Child.

Wrapping Paper

Also accepted: Wrapping Paper

Fun fact: In 1917 a Kansas City shop run by the Hall brothers, later Hallmark, ran out of plain tissue and sold French envelope liners instead, and they sold well. Paper wrapping goes back much further, to ancient China.

3 Wise Men

Also accepted: Three Wise Men, wise men

Fun fact: Matthew's Gospel never says how many wise men there were. Three is assumed because three gifts are named: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Also accepted: Rockin Around the Christmas Tree, Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

Fun fact: Brenda Lee was 13 when she recorded it in Nashville in October 1958. It came out in November 1958 in the US but reached the UK only in December 1962.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Also accepted: The Christmas Song

Fun fact: The song's proper title is The Christmas Song. Bob Wells began the first lines on a hot July day in 1945 and Mel Torme wrote the tune; the Nat King Cole Trio first recorded it in June 1946.

Joy to the World

Fun fact: Isaac Watts wrote the words in 1719 as a paraphrase of Psalm 98, and it was not written as a Christmas song. It is usually sung to an 1848 arrangement by Lowell Mason.

Peace on Earth

Fun fact: The words echo the angels' song to the shepherds in Luke 2:14, which Latin tradition renders as Gloria in excelsis Deo. Translations differ on who the peace is for.

Fairytale of New York

Also accepted: Fairy Tale of New York

Fun fact: The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl released it in November 1987 and it peaked at number two in the UK, kept off the Christmas top spot by the Pet Shop Boys' Always on My Mind.