Here are 184 funny, clean Christmas jokes and 25 riddles with answers, for kids, grown-ups and everyone groaning in between. They're sorted into dad jokes, puns, one-liners, knock-knocks, Santa, reindeer, elf, snowman, tree and Grinch jokes, plus a few for the office. Tap any joke for the punchline, or press the joke machine for a drumroll.
Updated by the Frugal Santa elves
Pick a kind of joke, press the big red button and wait for the drumroll.
184 jokes and 25 riddles are loaded, and the drummer is ready.
Pick Knock-knock and you get to say "Who's there?" yourself.
Short, silly and safe for the youngest listener at the table. Read the question out loud, wait a beat and let them guess. Most children start to understand jokes with double meanings at about 6 or 7, so puns land best from first grade up. Younger kids laugh at the silly picture instead, a cat on the beach or a mummy in wrapping paper, and that counts too.
Sandy Claws.
It kept dropping its needles.
Merry Christmas to ewe!
Don't worry, I've got you covered.
He was feeling a little crummy.
Orna-mints.
A mistle-toad.
All the wrapping.
I'm just hanging around.
Because it's in Decem-brrr.
A cookie sheet.
It was already stuffed.
It had a one-of-a-kind act.
They were the brightest in the class.
A dad joke is a clean joke whose punchline is usually a pun you can see coming from across the room. Merriam-Webster added "dad joke" to its dictionary in September 2019 and says these jokes are usually judged "endearingly corny or unfunny." You don't need to be a dad to tell one. Keep a straight face, deliver the line, then wait. The groan means it worked.
You can't beat it.
It's Christmas, Eve!
It had the drumsticks.
It was a dim idea.
They got 24 days.
He wanted cold, hard cash.
But it just doesn't work.
Silent Night.
I can't put it down.
Then I realized I'd have to stop cold turkey.
I can't wait to see how it turns out.
It was a waist of time.
But it grew on me.
Dad said, "Go stand in the corner. It's 90 degrees."
Tinsel-itis.
I see food and I eat it.
A pun swaps in a word that sounds almost right, so "fleece" stands in for the "feliz" in "Feliz Navidad." A pun is short enough to fit on a Christmas card. The ones tagged Card-ready work as a whole card: write the question on the front and the answer inside. Or open the joke machine, pick Puns and press Save as a card for a picture you can print or send.
Fleece Navidad!
"Meowy Christmas!"
"Best woofs."
"Owl be home for Christmas."
"We were peppermint to be."
"I glove you."
"I love you snow much."
"Wishing you a latte joy."
"Season's eatings!"
"Thanks for a tree-mendous year."
Jungle Bells.
Christmas corals.
A Christmas quacker.
Cross-mouse cards.
"Stick with me and we'll go places."
An abdominal snowman.
A snow-it-all.
Claus-trophobic.
Subordinate Clauses.
Santa gives them the sack. A big red one, full of presents to wrap.
Nothing. It just waved.
"You hang around. I'll go on a head."
Bear-foot.
No eye-deer.
A sad candy cane.
Chimneys, cookies and one very long night of work. The elves tell these all over Santa's village at the North Pole, whenever he is out of earshot. He has heard every one of them, and the story goes that he still laughs at the karate one.
Because it soots him.
Santa Pause.
He has a black belt.
A hoe, hoe, hoe.
He keeps a log.
Santa Jaws.
Looks like rain, dear.
Nothing. It was on the house.
Saint Nickel-less.
Santa walking backward.
Ready, set, ho!
Peanut butter and jolly.
He wanted to see time fly.
In the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," Santa's sleigh had eight reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem. The last two names came from an old Dutch exclamation meaning thunder and lightning, and later printings changed them to Donder and Blitzen. Meet all of Santa's reindeer, then try these on them.
Horn-aments.
Comet. He's a born comet-dian.
Because every single buck is deer to him.
This one's going to sleigh you.
A cari-boo.
He didn't want to be recognized.
Dancer. Prancer says it's a tie.
Anything you like. He can't hear you.
Truth or deer.
Oh, deer!
He always makes a dash for it.
Elves build the toys, wrap the gifts and, according to North Pole legend, tell the worst puns in the Arctic. Find your elf name first, then tell these in character. One of them is about the candy cane line; for the real story behind the stripes, read the history of the candy cane.
The elf-abet.
Their hats have bells on them.
He has a real gift for it.
Wrap.
Elf-ies.
Elfish.
Their gnome-work.
They elf themselves.
Tape it easy.
It was driving him round the bend.
They're always wrapped up in their work.
Snowman jokes hold up in any weather, which is more than snowmen can say. Every one of these is clean and carrot-approved.
Iceberg-ers.
A puddle.
Chill-dren.
In a snowbank.
On an icicle.
A meltdown.
Do you smell carrots?
They know how to break the ice.
Sun-day.
He was feeling a little flaky.
Because Frost bites.
They stay cool under pressure.
The Christmas tree is a pun factory: needle, pine, fir and spruce all have second meanings. The Grinch joins it here, because he is green too. Dr. Seuss published How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in 1957. In the book the Grinch's heart is "two sizes too small," his dog Max pulls the sleigh all by himself, and by the end the Grinch's heart grows three sizes. Go easy on him. He came around.
Spruce Lee.
It was being knotty.
Nice gnawing you.
Fir-well. I'll be pining for you.
It needed a trim.
The poplar one.
Sep-timber!
A pineapple.
Too many Whos.
He has a green thumb. And a green everything else.
He was doing the work of a whole reindeer team.
Heart training. His grew three sizes in one day.
A one-liner needs no question and no "Who's there?" It is one sentence with a turn at the end, short enough for a group chat, a toast, a speech at the office party or the last line of a card. Read the first half, pause for a beat, then land the second half.
Its days are numbered.
the star has its own weather.
The timer is Dad.
Grandma bought the kids drums.
came back this year as vintage.
where you're allowed to eat the walls.
It's a family heirloom.
three hours of wrapping, four minutes of unwrapping.
even I can't get them open.
and one bulb that decides whether any of them work.
Ours is untangling last year's lights.
has better posture than I do.
and the cat plays with the box.
until about December 29.
a group project with ice.
a plant with excellent marketing.
that got a promotion.
a peppermint that took up walking.
The stores told me in August.
are never in the same room.
One person knocks, the other asks "Who's there?", and the pun lands on the second "who." Knock-knock jokes became a craze across the United States in 1936, when newspapers called them the new favorite parlor game. They work best out loud, so try them in the car, at dinner or in the joke machine above, which lets you say "Who's there?" yourself.
Mary Christmas, and a happy New Year!
Snow use. I forgot my key again.
Elf me carry these presents. They're heavy!
Doughnut open anything until Christmas morning!
Hannah partridge in a pear tree!
Freeze a jolly good fellow!
Rabbit up nicely. It's a present!
Alaska Santa if there's room on the sleigh.
Tree more sleeps until Christmas!
Hmm. Your Santa impression needs some work.
Water you doing up so late? It's Christmas Eve. Go to sleep!
HO HO HO!
Yule find out on Christmas morning.
Pizza on Earth!
Lettuce in, it's freezing out here!
Gladys Christmas break, aren't you?
Holly up and open the door. My toes are frozen!
Noah good place to hide these presents?
Anita minute to finish wrapping your present!
Avery merry Christmas to you!
Irish you a merry Christmas!
Justin time for Christmas dinner!
Arthur any cookies left for Santa?
Cher the candy canes, please!
Icy you peeking at the presents!
Harry up, Santa's almost here!
Juno how many sleeps until Christmas?
Bless you! Wrap up warm out there.
Wooden shoe like to know what you're getting for Christmas?
Dewey have to wait until morning to open the presents?
A riddle is a joke you get to solve. Ask it, give everyone a full minute to guess, and only then show the answer. Most of these are wordplay, and a few are brain teasers with a trick hidden in the wording. Give younger guessers a hint. In the joke machine, pick Riddles and you get time to think before the drumroll. For questions with real answers, try Christmas trivia.
A Christmas tree.
An umbrella.
The Christmas one has Noel. Say it out loud: no L.
A snowman.
Snow.
Footprints.
A turkey.
Nowhere. Electric trains don't make smoke.
Neither. Reindeer don't lay eggs.
All twelve of them.
A cold.
A candle.
A clock.
The stamp on a letter to Santa.
Three.
Four. You took them.
The letter D.
In the dictionary.
She lives in the Southern Hemisphere, in a country like Australia, where December is summer.
A palm tree.
The letter S.
They're a grandpa, his son and his grandson.
Light. Laughter is also a correct answer.
A piano.
A coin.
Wry, clean Christmas jokes for adults: the office party, the gift-swap group chat and dinner with the in-laws. Nothing here would make a grandparent blush, so you can tell any of them in front of your boss. Whether your boss laughs is another matter. For a toast or a card for coworkers, borrow from the one-liners too.
Best performance review I've had all year.
Now I just have to remember where I hid them.
The three saddest words a grown-up can read at 6 a.m. on Christmas morning.
And every year I find last year's roll on December 26.
They bought something from "customers also viewed."
I've been in the family for nine years.
This year I started on December 23, which is very early for me.
It's recycling with nicer paper.
At this point it's just Regular Santa.
Second place.
I can't get to the post office before it closes.
It's the 40-message group chat to pick a date for the gift exchange.
Then someone comes home with a nine-foot tree.
And now everybody else's candle looks sad.
My inbox took it as a challenge.
has already lasted longer than the party will.
ends with "Let's pick this up in January."
when new socks are the best present under the tree.
The box said "Ages 3 and up."
have stopped speaking to each other.
Timing does most of the work. Say the setup clearly, then stop and count two beats in your head. That pause is your drumroll. It gives the listener a moment to guess, and the guess is half the fun: a wrong answer from a 5-year-old is often funnier than the real punchline. Keep the setup short, too. A long setup promises more than a pun can deliver, and almost every Christmas joke ends in a pun.
Then pick the joke for the room. Little kids laugh at the silly picture, a cat on the beach or a snowman in July. Puns start to land around first grade, when children begin to catch double meanings. Riddles suit a table that wants a challenge, and one-liners suit a toast. Save the office material for grown-ups, and the in-law jokes for in-laws who laugh easily. Tell three or four, then pass the turn to someone else.
Want a whole evening of it? Pair the jokes with Christmas trivia questions or one of the Christmas party games, and let the losing team tell the next joke.
Some of the blame goes to a London candy maker. Tom Smith sold sweets and wedding cakes in Clerkenwell in the 1840s. On a trip to Paris he saw French bonbons, sugared almonds twisted in paper, and back home he started tucking small love mottos inside the wrappers. London's V&A museum says he patented his first cracker device in 1847 and, in the 1860s, perfected the snap that bangs when two people pull a cracker.
Later, writers were hired to compose snappy lines for crackers. A box of Tom Smith crackers from 1927 came with headdresses, musical toys, fake jewelry and "quips and jokes." Crackers still hold a paper hat, a small gift and a joke today.
The rest comes down to who is listening. A Christmas joke has to work for a 6-year-old and a grandparent at the same table, so it has to be clean and quick. Clean and quick usually means a pun.
Santa likes a good joke. On a live video call with Santa, he listens and answers out loud, so you can try your best one from this page and hear what he makes of it. Try a riddle on him, too. Then ask him for one of his. He keeps his jokes short and clean, like these.
Kids can tell him the snowman joke they've practiced all week. Grown-ups can test the office-party material on someone who has heard every Christmas joke there is. The call runs in your browser on a phone, tablet or computer with no app, and you need a microphone, not a camera. It's $1 a minute.
This Santa is an AI video character who talks in real time. Here's how an AI Santa works, and here's how a call with Santa works from start to finish.
It depends on who is listening. For kids, the elves' favorite is "Why are elves terrible at hide-and-seek? Their hats have bells on them." For grown-ups, try "I wore my normal sweater to an ugly sweater party. Second place." Press the joke machine a few times to find your own.
One-liners need no setup and suit a meeting, a toast or a card: "Never trust an advent calendar. Its days are numbered." Every joke in the one-liners and the jokes for adults and work is clean and safe to tell in front of your boss.
A short one with a picture in it. "What is a sheep's favorite Christmas song? Fleece Navidad!" works next to a sheep doodle, and "I love you snow much" suits a card for family. The puns tagged Card-ready in the puns section fit inside any card. Use Save as a card in the joke machine to turn one into a picture you can print or send.
Start with one that has a single clear answer: "What falls all winter but never gets hurt?" Snow. Younger children do best with riddles like that. Older kids enjoy the brain teasers, such as the electric toy train that makes no smoke. All 25 are in the riddles section, each with its answer folded underneath.
A pun is the wordplay itself, like "fir" standing in for "for." A dad joke is the delivery: a pun told with a straight face and no shame, usually as a statement, such as "I tried to make a belt out of tinsel. It was a waist of time." Most dad jokes contain a pun, but not every pun is a dad joke. Both are in their own sections here: dad jokes and puns.
Yes, once they know their line is "Who's there?" Start with a simple one, like Snow. Snow who? Snow use, I forgot my key. The joke machine lets kids press the "Who's there?" button themselves.
Yes. Santa listens and answers live, so tell him one and then ask for one back. He tells short, clean Christmas jokes. Start a call with Santa on a phone, tablet or computer.
Please do. Copy any joke from the joke machine, save it as a picture card, or send a link. Each joke has its own link, so the person you send it to lands right on it.
Live videoTry a dad joke or a riddle on Santa in a live video call, then tell him your wishes and see each one priced across stores, lowest first. $1 a minute.
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