Antlers7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Both male and female reindeer can grow these each year.
Blitzen7 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: Last of the eight reindeer. The poem of 1823 first spelled the name Blixem.
Chimney7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: The way Santa is said to get into the house.
Comet5 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: The fifth reindeer, named like an icy body with a tail in the night sky.
Cupid5 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: The sixth reindeer, named like the Roman god of love.
Dancer6 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Second in the usual list of the eight reindeer. The name fits someone in a ballet.
Dasher6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: First in the usual list of the eight reindeer.
Elf3 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: A small helper said to live at the North Pole and look after the reindeer.
Eve3 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: The night before. Stockings are hung up on the Christmas one.
Jolly5 letters, hard to guess, 10 misses. Clue: Cheerful and full of good humor, the usual word for the man in the red coat.
Nicholas8 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: The saint, a 4th-century bishop of Myra, behind the Santa story. His feast day is December 6.
Prancer7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: Third of the eight reindeer. The name suits a horse that lifts its feet high.
Reindeer8 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: One of the eight animals that pull the sleigh in A Visit from St. Nicholas, the poem of 1823.
Santa5 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: The gift bringer in the red coat with the white fur collar and cuffs.
Sleigh6 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: What the flying reindeer are said to pull through the air.
Stocking8 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: An empty sock hung up on Christmas Eve to be filled with small toys and candy.
Toy3 letters, hard to guess, 11 misses. Clue: What the elves are said to make in the workshop.
Vixen5 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: The fourth reindeer, whose name also means a female fox.
Workshop8 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: Where, people say, the elves make the gifts.
Tree and trimmings 15
Bauble6 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Another name for a tree ornament, often a shiny ball.
Bell4 letters, hard to guess, 13 misses. Clue: It rings. Small ones that jingle are often tied to a wreath.
Candle6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: Trees were lit with these before electric lights took over.
Decorations11 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: Lights, garlands, wreaths and everything else put up for the season.
Fir3 letters, hard to guess, 12 misses. Clue: One of the three evergreens most often used as the tree, with spruce and pine.
Garland7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: A long decorative rope draped around a tree or a room.
Holly5 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: An evergreen used at Christmas since the Middle Ages. A traditional carol pairs it with ivy.
Ivy3 letters, hard to guess, 9 misses. Clue: A climbing evergreen. A traditional carol pairs it with holly.
Mistletoe9 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: A plant with waxy white berries. By custom, anyone standing under a sprig of it may be kissed.
Ornament8 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: A decoration hung on the tree, usually reused year after year.
Pine4 letters, hard to guess, 11 misses. Clue: An evergreen with needles and cones, a common choice for the tree.
Poinsettia10 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: A plant from Mexico whose red leaves are often taken for petals, tied to Christmas since the 16th century.
Tinsel6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: Shiny strands draped over the branches to glitter like ice.
Tree4 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: Usually a spruce, a pine or a fir, brought indoors and decorated.
Wreath6 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A ring of evergreens, often hung on the door of a house.
Gifts and good cheer 10
Bow3 letters, hard to guess, 13 misses. Clue: A knot of ribbon with two loops. One usually sits at the top or bottom of a wreath.
Christmas9 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: The holiday itself. The name is short for Christ's Mass.
Generosity10 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: Readiness to give. Charles Dickens wanted Christmas to be a family festival of it.
Gift4 letters, hard to guess, 8 misses. Clue: Something given freely. Giving them is one of the most popular traditions of the season.
Goodwill8 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: Kind feeling toward others. A Christmas Carol helped make it a theme of the holiday.
Merry5 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: The usual word before Christmas in a greeting, made popular by an 1843 story by Charles Dickens.
Present7 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: Something wrapped and handed over, another word for a gift.
Wrapping8 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: Covering a box in paper so that what is inside stays a surprise.
Yule4 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: A winter festival of the Germanic peoples that was later merged with Christmas.
Yuletide8 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: An old name for the Christmas season, first recorded around 1475.
Carols and stories 9
Candlelight11 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Outdoor carol concerts by this soft glow are a summer tradition in Australia, made popular in Melbourne in 1938.
Carol5 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: A Christmas song, such as Silent Night or I Saw Three Ships.
Jingle6 letters, hard to guess, 11 misses. Clue: The ringing sound of small bells, and the first word of a sleigh song published in 1857.
Joy3 letters, hard to guess, 13 misses. Clue: Great happiness. A well-known carol wishes it to the World.
Nutcracker10 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A figure shaped like a toy soldier, and the title of an 1892 ballet by Tchaikovsky.
Partridge9 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: The bird in the pear tree, the first gift in a carol that counts twelve days.
Scrooge7 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: The miser in the 1843 Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol.
Tannenbaum10 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The German word in the title of a song about a fir tree, sung in English as O Christmas Tree.
Tidings7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: An old word for news. The carol God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen is also known by a name that starts with it.
Christmas table 9
Cinnamon8 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A brown spice baked into gingerbread and into German stollen.
Cracker7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: A table decoration that two people pull apart in Britain and Ireland. It snaps and drops a paper hat and a joke.
Fruitcake9 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: A cake of candied or dried fruit with nuts and spices.
Gingerbread11 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Spiced dough baked into men and into houses covered with candy.
Icing5 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: The sweet coating that covers a gingerbread house, along with candy.
Peppermint10 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: The usual flavor of a red and white candy cane.
Pudding7 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: A sweet boiled or steamed dessert traditionally served at Christmas dinner in Britain.
Stollen7 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: A German fruit bread of nuts, spices and dried fruit, often coated with powdered sugar.
Turkey6 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: The roast bird at the center of Christmas dinner in many English-speaking countries.
Nativity and church 18
Advent6 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: The season that starts four Sundays before Christmas. Its calendars have a little door for each day.
Angel5 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A messenger in the Nativity story. One may top the tree to stand for Gabriel.
Bethlehem9 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: The town where the Nativity story says Jesus was born.
Camel5 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: The animal shown with the Magi in a manger scene.
Donkey6 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: With an ox, the animal usually shown in a manger scene.
Epiphany8 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: The feast, traditionally on January 6, that recalls the visit of the Magi.
Frankincense12 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: An aromatic tree resin among the Magi's three gifts.
Inn3 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: In the Nativity story it had no room, so a stable was offered instead.
Magi4 letters, hard to guess, 8 misses. Clue: The visitors in the Gospel of Matthew who brought gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Manger6 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A feeding trough for animals. In the Gospel of Luke the newborn is laid in one.
Midnight8 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The hour when a Christmas Eve church service traditionally begins.
Myrrh5 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: An aromatic resin, the last named of the Magi's three gifts.
Nativity8 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: The story of the birth of Jesus, told in the gospels of Luke and Matthew.
Pageant7 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: A Christmas show that acts out the Nativity story.
Shepherd8 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: In the Nativity story, angels bring the news to people with this job.
Stable6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: Where the child is born in the traditional story, because the inn had no room.
Star4 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: It may top the tree to stand for the one over Bethlehem.
Swaddling9 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: The kind of clothes a newborn is wrapped in. Icons of the Nativity show the child in them.
How it works
Christmas hangman words fool the eye. Bell looks gentler than Frankincense, yet it cost our test guesser 13 wrong letters and Frankincense none. Here are 80 words in six themes, each with a letter count, a miss count and a clue. Press Pick 5 new words, choose one and draw the blanks.
Read the full guide
Six themes, from the sleigh to the stable
The list that reads All words holds the six themes. Santa and the reindeer has 19 words, seven of them reindeer names. Tree and trimmings has 15, Christmas table serves Cracker, Stollen and Gingerbread, and Carols and stories runs from Jingle to Scrooge. The 18 words from the Bible story and the church calendar sit under Nativity and church. A theme works together with the levels under More filters: Nativity and church with Easy to guess leaves 11 words, Star and Bethlehem among them.
What the miss count tells you
It is how many wrong letters a program that knows a dictionary called before it finished the word (how the test works). Two misses or fewer is marked easy (38 words) and six or more hard (18). Length decides most of it: the 27 words of three to five letters averaged 6.5 misses, the 15 of nine letters or more 1.1. Reindeer fell without a miss, because once its three Es are placed only 14 dictionary words fit.
Christmas hangman needs no gallows. Draw a bare tree and hang one ornament per miss, up to a number agreed before the first word.
Only five of the 27 short words scored easy: Santa, Tree, Star, Camel and Angel. Open with one of those when the guessers are new to the game.
Questions and answers
Which Christmas words are the hardest to guess?
Bell, Bow and Joy tie at 13 misses, then come Fir at 12 and Toy, Pine and Jingle at 11. None is rare. With _ELL showing, 14 words still fit, and the guesser tried S, H, D, C, M, W, F, G, Y and P before B.
Where do the clues come from?
They were written for this page, then every custom, name and date was checked against Wikipedia, and whatever it did not back was cut. That is why the clue for Blitzen says the 1823 poem first spelled the name Blixem, and why Donner is missing: the same poem called that reindeer Dunder, and a word with two spellings starts arguments.
How many misses should a Christmas game allow?
Draw six ornaments and 18 of the 80 words beat our guesser. Draw ten and just eight still win, all of them six letters or fewer, so a generous count mostly protects the table from Bell, Bow and Joy.