A favourite question of quizzes this time of year is to name all eight of Santa's reindeer. In fact I was at such a quiz yesterday, and could only name five or six, whereas knowing one more reindeer would have won me the quiz. Hence this slightly annoyed post.

Here's the eight reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.

Hopefully you can remember Dasher without any help. Dasher then alliterates with Dancer. 'Dasher, dancer', is the first line of the rhyme. Dancer then rhymes with Prancer.

Next remember the phrase thunder and lightening, because Donner means 'thunder' in German and Blitzen means 'lightning'. After all, the German word blitzkrieg literally means 'lightning war'. Also, did you know that Thursday = Thor's day (the Norse thunder god) = thunder day = donner tag = Donnerstag? Phew. Then, Vixen rhymes with Blitzen.

Finally you have two reindeer who aren't related to the other reindeer, but they do alliterate with themselves: Cupid and Comet. These are probably the most difficult of the two to remember. But if you can remember one, then you can remember that the other also begins with a 'C'.

P.S. I won't even mention poor Rudolf...