One joke to a card, cut out and handed round so everybody at the table has their own to read. Eight to a sheet as it opens, two across and four down, the question in bold with a hairline rule under it and the answer in smaller print below. What do you call a reindeer with no eyes? No eye deer. The family set holds fifty three, so twenty four cards prints as three sheets with nothing repeated.
Why the answer is on the card
Each card carries its own answer, and that is what makes handing them round work. Whoever ends up with card seven does not need anybody to tell them the punchline, so eight people can go round the table once without a host reading from a master list.
The rule between question and answer is a hairline, short and centred, close enough that the pair reads as one joke rather than two unrelated lines. The question is bold and the answer sits smaller and greyer underneath, so a glance at a card finds the question first.
The family set and what is in it
Fifty three jokes sit in the family set and the shape never varies: a short question and a pun. Why was the snowman looking through the carrots? He was picking his nose. What is the best thing to put in a Christmas cake? Your teeth.
Snowmen, Santa, elves, reindeer, sprouts and the tree carry nearly all of them, which is deliberate. Nothing on a card needs a reference somebody has to have seen first, and nothing carries a second meaning, so the same card lands with a grandparent and with a nine year old.
No question runs past fifty four characters and no answer past thirty four, which is why almost every card is two short lines with white space round them. Which letter is missing from the Christmas alphabet? The L, so we sing no L.
Six to a sheet or eight
Eight is where it opens, two columns by four rows, laid out the same way on A4 and on US Letter. Six gives each card more height and more room round the words, which is the one to choose if the cards are going to be read out across a loud room.
The dashed cut grid takes in the outer border as well as the lines between cards, so every card comes off the sheet with four cut edges rather than one side of blank paper. Twelve, sixteen and twenty four are the larger counts, and twenty four comes out as three sheets with no joke on two of them.
On 160gsm card the cards survive an evening of being passed round and go back in the box for next year. On copier paper they are fine once, then they go soft in warm hands.
Questions
- How many Christmas joke cards are on a sheet?
- Eight as it opens, two across and four down, the same on A4 and US Letter. The count above the page also offers six, twelve, sixteen and twenty four, and twenty four prints as three sheets.
- Is the answer printed on the card?
- Yes. The question is in bold at the top of the card, then a hairline rule, then the answer in smaller print under it, so whoever is holding the card reads both without asking anybody.
- Are the jokes clean enough for a family table?
- Yes. The fifty three in the family set are built out of snowmen, Santa, elves, reindeer and the Christmas dinner, with no second meanings and no named characters, so one card suits a child and a grandparent.
- Can I get a different set of jokes?
- Yes. Shuffle redraws the cards from the same set, so a second run gives different jokes. The Which jokes control switches between family favourites, the children, the cracker groaners and a mix of all three.
- What should I print the joke cards on?
- Plain paper does for one evening. For cards that get handed round and then kept, 160gsm card is worth it, and it cuts cleaner. Both paper sizes lay the cards out identically.