Old Father Christmas quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which literary categories best describe Old Father Christmas?

   • Fairy Tale, Real Magic & an Enchanted Kingdom
   • Fable, Talking Animals & a Stated Moral
   • Mystery, Hidden Clues & a Solved Crime
   • Correct answer: Realistic Fiction, a Christmas Memory & a Child's Belief
   • Tall Tale, a Frontier Hero & Big, Bragging Boasts

   Realistic Fiction, a Christmas Memory & a Child's Belief is the best fit. The people and places are ordinary: a family home, a kitchen, a snowy lane. A grown man looks back on one Christmas Eve when he and his sister believed an old man was Old Father Christmas.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What picture in his godmother's picture-book do the children love?

   • Father Christmas coming down a chimney with a sack of toys
   • Father Christmas with a little spaniel at his heels
   • Correct answer: Old Father Christmas holding a tree of candles and toys
   • Old Father Christmas riding a sleigh over the snow

   The narrator remembers "the picture of that held by Old Father Christmas in my godmother's picture-book": a Christmas-tree. His father tells him the things on it are candles and toys: "Those are toys, my son." Later the children notice there is "no picture of Father Christmas's dog in the book."

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3. 3

   Question 3. The narrator asks, "How old is Father Christmas?" What does his father's laughing answer tell the reader?

   • Correct answer: That the story's Christmas takes place in the year 1830
   • That the father once met Father Christmas long ago
   • That the picture-book is 1830 years old this very Christmas
   • That Father Christmas will visit the family this year

   The father says, "One thousand eight hundred and thirty years, child," which "was then the year of our Lord." He is counting from "the first great Christmas Day." So his joke tells us the year is 1830. The narrator takes it seriously and decides, "Then he's older than Methuselah."

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4. 4

   Question 4. On Christmas Eve, why do Patty and the narrator end up outside in the snow?

   • Their father sends them to watch for Old Father Christmas
   • Correct answer: Their parents are busy in the parlor, and Kitty is baking
   • Kitty asks them to fetch holly from the hedge in the lane
   • They want to help Dick bore holes in the church seats

   "My father and mother were mysteriously and unaccountably busy in the parlour," and the children "were not allowed to go in." In the kitchen, Kitty was "all over the place" with "cakes, mince pies, and puddings," and had no room for them. So they put "Kitty's shawl over our two heads, and went outside."

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5. 5

   Question 5. What does the old man in the lane look like?

   • A red coat with white fur, and a sack of toys on his back
   • A long black cloak, a lantern, and a bundle of holly
   • A gray beard, a green hood, and a basket of sweeties
   • Correct answer: White hair and beard, an old brown coat, and a fir-tree

   "His hair and beard were as white as cotton-wool." He had "a face like the sort of apple that keeps well in winter; his coat was old and brown." And "he carried a small fir-tree." No wonder both children cried, "It's Old Father Christmas!"

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6. 6

   Question 6. Why does the old man seem to agree with everything the children say?

   • He is only pretending to be Father Christmas as a game
   • Their father has asked him to play Father Christmas
   • Correct answer: He is rather deaf, so he smiles and nods at what he hears
   • He hopes they will ask him in for tea and Christmas cakes

   He was "rather deaf, for which he made up by smiling and nodding his head a good deal, and saying, 'aye, aye, to be sure!' at likely intervals." That is why, when Patty asks, "Then you are Father Christmas?" he answers, "And a happy New Year." He is not playing a trick. He simply cannot hear them well.

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7. 7

   Question 7. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "The same conviction seized upon us both."

   • Correct answer: A firm belief that something is true
   • A judge's ruling that someone is guilty
   • A sudden fear that something is wrong
   • A wish for something one cannot have

   A conviction is a firm belief. Both children were sure the old man was Father Christmas, and "With one breath, we exclaimed, 'It's Old Father Christmas!'" In a courtroom, a conviction means being found guilty, but that is not the sense here.

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8. 8

   Question 8. As he walks away, Patty asks, "How soon?" What does the old man tell her?

   • He will be back when the church bells ring at midnight
   • Correct answer: He is coming back by and by, about four o'clock
   • He will leave the tree at their back door after dark
   • He will see them again on next year's Christmas Eve

   He says, "I'm coming back by and by," and then, "About four o'clock." He adds, "I'm only going up yonder." The children never dare to ask if the tree is for them. Still, when their father passes by, the narrator tells him, "I do think Old Father Christmas is going to bring us a Christmas-tree to-night."

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9. 9

   Question 9. After the clock strikes four, how do the children find the old man?

   • Correct answer: His little spaniel leads them up the lane to a ditch
   • They hear him calling for help from the little wood
   • Kitty sees him lying in the snow from the kitchen
   • Their father finds him on his way home from the church

   The dog licks them, runs off, and comes back. Patty says, "He wants us to go with him." The spaniel "led us up the lane" to "something lying in the ditch." The old man "had slipped upon a bit of ice, and lay stunned in the snow." The narrator says the dog acted "as if he understood our language," so many readers think the dog came for help on purpose.

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10. 10

    Question 10. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "the old man had slipped upon a bit of ice, and lay stunned in the snow."

    • Filled with wonder and great surprise
    • Frozen stiff by the bitter winter cold
    • Hurt too badly ever to stand up again
    • Correct answer: Knocked senseless for a short time

    Here stunned means knocked senseless for a while by a blow or a fall. Patty sobs, "I think he's dead!" But he is not. Once he is carried into the kitchen, "There he quickly revived." Today stunned often means amazed, but that is not the sense here.

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11. 11

    Question 11. How does Kitty treat the old man when he is carried into her busy kitchen?

    • She grumbles about the mess and sends the dog outside
    • She puts him to bed upstairs and runs for the doctor
    • Correct answer: She pulls his chair to the oven and lets his dog by the fire
    • She wraps him in her shawl and walks him back to the Hall

    Kitty "did not utter a word of complaint" and "drew the old man's chair close up to the oven with her own hand." She was so touched by his dog "that she admitted him even to the hearth." Even Puss the cat lay down back to back with the spaniel. At tea Kitty tells him, "Make yourself at home, sir; there's more where these came from."

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12. 12

    Question 12. What are the "tasters and wasters" the children eat at tea with the old man?

    • Thick slices of bread spread with dark, sticky treacle
    • Correct answer: Test bits of dough, and cakes that broke or burnt
    • Mince pies saved over from the Christmas before
    • Sweets taken from the bags on the Christmas-tree

    The story explains them: "little bits of dough, or shortbread, put in to try the state of the oven, and certain cakes that had got broken or burnt in the baking." Their "usual fare of thick bread and treacle" was exchanged that night for these cakes.

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13. 13

    Question 13. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "Since you are so pressing, miss, I'll take another dish."

    • Making clothes flat with a hot iron
    • Needing to be done right away; urgent
    • Correct answer: Urging or insisting, again and again
    • Pushing hard against something heavy

    To be pressing here is to keep urging someone, the way a kind host keeps offering more. The children are really hoping to talk about the tree, but the old man seems to take Patty's questions as urging more tea on him. In this old phrase, a dish means a cup of tea.

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14. 14

    Question 14. Their father says, "Old Father Christmas has sent a tree to the young people." What do Patty and the narrator do?

    • Run to the parlor door and peep through the keyhole
    • Ask the old man to show them his secret cave
    • Laugh, because they know their parents made the tree
    • Correct answer: Dance round the old man and thank him for his kindness

    "Patty and I uttered a cry of delight, and we forthwith danced round the old man, saying, 'How nice! Oh, how kind of you!'" The narrator adds that this "must have bewildered him, but he only smiled and nodded." The old man's own fir-tree had been going "up to the Hall," but the children still believed he was Father Christmas.

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15. 15

    Question 15. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

    • Patty is the first to see the old man in the lane.

      Happened

      The narrator was looking at the robin when Patty "gave a great jump that dragged the shawl from our heads, and cried: 'Look!'"

    • The old man comes down the chimney with a sack of toys.

      Didn't happen

      No one comes down a chimney in this story. The old man walks along the lane carrying a fir-tree, and later he is carried into the kitchen after his fall.

    • The narrator falls while climbing the wall when the dog licks his legs.

      Happened

      Something warm and something cold touched his legs. "I came down 'with a run' and bruised my knees, my elbows, and my chin." The cold thing was the dog's nose and the warm thing was his tongue.

    • The old man carries his fir-tree to the children's house.

      Didn't happen

      The grown-up narrator tells us the old man "was taking a little fir-tree up to the Hall, to be made into a Christmas-tree." He slipped on the ice while "Returning from the Hall."

    • The old man stands with his eyes shut while the narrator says grace.

      Happened

      "I said grace, during which he stood, and, indeed, he stood for some time afterward with his eyes shut." The narrator thinks the old man could not hear that the grace was over.

    • The old man tells the children he is only pretending to be Father Christmas.

      Didn't happen

      He never says this. He is "rather deaf," so he nods and says "aye, aye, to be sure!" to whatever he hears. The children take his nods to mean yes.

    • The old man is given a bundle of old clothes as his present.

      Happened

      At the tree, the old man gratefully accepts "a bundle of old clothes which had been hastily put together to form his present." Even this does not make the children doubt that he is Father Christmas.

    • The old man's little dog is named Reuben.

      Didn't happen

      Reuben is the old man's own name. The father says, "Come, Reuben," and later the parents speak of the dog's "late master as 'old Reuben.'" The dog is never given a name.

    • Kitty keeps her present in its tissue paper for the rest of her life.

      Happened

      Kitty's present was "a little work-box." She often showed it off, "but it was kept in the same bit of tissue paper till she died."

    • The dog leads the children to the cave where Christmas-trees are dressed.

      Didn't happen

      The narrator hoped the dog "would lead us at last to the cave where Christmas-trees are dressed. But he never did." The cave was only an idea the boy had.

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16. 16

    Question 16. The old man dies about a week after Christmas. What happens to his little dog?

    • Correct answer: He comes to the children's home, and Patty adopts him
    • He runs off up the lane and lives at the Hall instead
    • He stays by his master's grave and will not leave it
    • Kitty takes him in to keep the kitchen free of mice

    "When he was buried, his little dog came to us." The narrator supposes "he remembered the hospitality he had received." Then "Patty adopted him, and he was very faithful. Puss always looked on him with favour."

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17. 17

    Question 17. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "children are not easily disabused of a favourite fancy"

    • Treated cruelly or unkindly by others
    • Correct answer: Set free from a mistaken belief
    • Made to feel sorry for a mistake
    • Talked into believing something new

    To be disabused is to be set free from a wrong idea. The children are not easily talked out of believing the old man was Father Christmas. The word has nothing to do with being abused. Earlier the narrator says the same thing another way: "We were not undeceived."

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18. 18

    Question 18. The parents called him old Reuben, yet the old man "was long gratefully remembered as Old Father Christmas." Which idea does this ending best support?

    • Children should believe whatever grown-ups tell them
    • Grown-ups should never make jokes with their children
    • Correct answer: A happy childhood belief can live on in our memories
    • A stranger should never be invited into a family home

    The story never states a moral, but the last sentence suggests that a happy belief from childhood can live on. The narrator knows the truth now, yet "in Patty's thoughts and in mine" the old man stayed Old Father Christmas. The other choices don't fit: the family welcomed a stranger, and the father's joke about 1830 was harmless fun.

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