Rockin' Around the Christmas Trees Quiz

Answer: Mary

There are lots of different ways you can tackle this puzzle, but one would be to start with Charles's statement which tells us that both his and Mary's trees have stars on them. Coupled with Mary's statement that her tree has yellow decorations, it is clear that Tree 1 with the star and yellow baubles must be Mary's.

Answer: Elizabeth

Elizabeth's statement says that her tree is topped by a reindeer (the only choice other than a star or an angel) with the same colour baubles as Victoria's. The latter's statement declares that her tree has red baubles, so Elizabeth must own Tree 2.

Answer: Edward

Henry states that Edward's tree has yellow baubles. Edward must therefore be the owner of Tree 3 as we already know that the other yellow-baubled tree is Mary's Tree 1.

Answer: Henry

Henry's statement also told us that his own tree has blue baubles and the same topper as Edward's. Edward's Tree 3 has an angel on top, so Henry's must be Tree 4 with the angel and blue baubles.

Answer: William

Edward's statement tells us that William's tree must also be topped by an angel, so has to be Tree 5 (with silver baubles) or Tree 7 (with red baubles).

William's statement then tells us that his and Anne's trees share the same colour scheme. As there are only three trees with red decorations (and we already know that one is Elizabeth's and another must be Victoria's) William and Anne can't both have red-baubled trees as well. Therefore William's must be Tree 5.

Answer: Anne

There are three trees in total with silver decorations, Tree 5, Tree 6 and Tree 9. William has already been identified as the owner of Tree 5 and Anne as the owner of one of the other two. Anne's statement confirms that she didn't make the somewhat odd choice of a reindeer topper (like Tree 9's owner), so she must be the owner of Tree 6.

Answer: George

George's statement says that his tree has an angel on top. He must be responsible for Tree 7, as all the others have had their owners identified already.

Answer: Victoria

Tree 8 has to be Victoria's as it is the only remaining unallocated tree which is decorated with red baubles.

Answer: Richard

Finally, returning to Charles's statement that his tree is topped by a star identifies Tree 9 with the reindeer topper as Richard's and Tree 10 as belonging to Charles.

Answer: Charles

Let's finish with some fun historical Christmas tree facts...

1) While evergreen trees have been part of winter festivals since ancient times, the modern tradition of having a decorated tree in your house at Christmas dates back to 16th century Germany.

2) The invention of electric Christmas tree lights is credited to Edward H. Johnson, a business partner of Thomas Edison. He first used a hand-made set on his own home's tree in 1882.

3) The Christmas tree in London's Trafalgar Square has been an annual gift from Oslo, Norway since 1947. The city provides the tree in recognition of British support during the Second World War.