recaps

Season 42

Today’s Final Jeopardy – Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Published Modified

Join TJF Plus

Get free access to all of our articles. Register a free account for TJF Plus.

Current Champion

Matthew Riggle, career statistics:
47 correct, 6 incorrect
1/1 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
41.23% in first on buzzer (47/114)
3/3 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $7,600)
1/2 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $21,300

To win:
3 games: 68.027%
4: 46.277%
5: 31.481%
6: 21.415%
7: 14.568%
Avg. streak: 4.128 games.
(Next game: September 14)
(Click Here for Methodology)

Upcoming Encore Presentations

August 12: S42 E98 (January 21, 2026)
August 13: S42 E99 (January 22, 2026)
August 14: S42 E100 (January 23, 2026)
August 15-16: S41 E141 (March 24, 2025)
August 17: S42 E101 (January 26, 2026)
August 18: S42 E105 (January 30, 2026)
August 19: S42 E102 (January 27, 2026)
August 20: S42 E103 (January 28, 2026)
August 21: S42 E104 (January 29, 2026)
August 22-23: S41 E142 (March 25, 2025)
August 24: S42 E106 (February 2, 2026)
August 25: S42 E107 (February 3, 2026)
August 26: S42 E108 (February 4, 2026)
August 27: S42 E109 (February 5, 2026)
August 28: S42 E110 (February 6, 2026)
August 29-30: S41 E143 (March 26, 2025)
(Source: Bell Fibe TV program guide)

All Time Winnings

All Time Jeopardy! Winnings, Regular Play Only:

1. Ken Jennings $2,520,700
2. James Holzhauer $2,462,216
3. Matt Amodio $1,518,601
4. Amy Schneider $1,382,800
5. Jamie Ding $882,605
6. Cris Pannullo $748,286
7. Mattea Roach $560,983
8. Jason Zuffranieri $532,496
9. Scott Riccardi $455,000
10. David Madden $430,400
11. Julia Collins $428,100
12. Matt Jackson $411,612
13. Austin Rogers $411,000
14. Ray Lalonde $386,400
15. Harrison Whitaker $373,999
16. Adriana Harmeyer $349,600
17. Caleb Groen $346,968
18. Adam Remsen $306,415
19. Ryan Long $299,400
20. Arthur Chu $297,200

All Time Jeopardy! Winnings, Including Tournaments (and Consolation Prizes):

1. Brad Rutter $4,968,436
2. Ken Jennings $4,372,700
3. James Holzhauer $3,614,216
4. Matt Amodio $1,964,601
5. Amy Schneider $1,864,800
6. Yogesh Raut $1,098,403
7. Mattea Roach $897,983
8. Jamie Ding $885,605
9. David Madden $785,733
10. Victoria Groce $773,801
11. Cris Pannullo $754,286
12. Roger Craig $706,200
13. Larissa Kelly $671,930
14. Matt Jackson $623,612
15. Jason Zuffranieri $549,496
16. Andrew He $534,365
17. Scott Riccardi $533,000
18. Jerome Vered $499,102
19. Julia Collins $495,767
20. Austin Rogers $493,000
21. Ben Ingram $449,201
22. Paolo Pasco $448,717
23. Adriana Harmeyer $446,600
24. Buzzy Cohen $441,603
25. Juveria Zaheer $441,000

DISCLAIMER

The Jeopardy! Fan is created by fans, for fans. The Jeopardy! game show and all elements thereof, including but not limited to copyright and trademark thereto, are the property of Jeopardy Productions, Inc. and are protected under law. This website is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or operated by Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

Warning: This page contains spoilers for the December 24, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.

Attention: There is also a new “Daily Details” post accompanying this game. If you’re looking for more detailed thoughts and statistics about today’s game of Jeopardy!, as well as the ability to leave a comment, make sure to check them out here! (Note that the page is only viewable to logged-in free subscribers to TJF Plus.)

Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Holiday Songs) for Wednesday, December 24, 2025 (Season 42, Game 78):

In an early draft, this title line was followed by “it may be your last”, but Judy Garland refused to sing it that way

(correct response beneath the contestants)

Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:

Melanie Hirsch, an attorney from Silver Spring, Maryland

Melanie Hirsch on Jeopardy!

Andrew Wang, a medical student from Winnetka, Illinois

Andrew Wang on Jeopardy!

Aaron Himmel, a stay-at-home dad originally from Long Island, New York

Aaron Himmel on Jeopardy!

Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:

On this Christmas Eve, we have our third semifinal of Week 2 of Second Chance; our returning players today are Aaron Himmel, Andrew Wang, and Melanie Hirsch. The Unified Prediction Model does think Andrew is the favorite, owing to his strong performance against Scott Riccardi back in July, but there’s so much variance in these games, with the Daily Doubles being crucially important. All three players had very strong, albeit non-victorious, debuts on the Alex Trebek Stage; I expect this to be a well-played game regardless.

If you watch the show on an ABC affiliate, tomorrow is not going to be a good day for you, owing to the situation of ABC airing its usual Christmas Day marathon of NBA games. Make sure to check your local listings, or, Matt Carberry’s usual Google sheet of pre-emptions.

(Content continues below)

My friends over at Geeks Who Drink have a daily trivia game—Thrice! Existing to make daily clever trivia content accessible to a wide audience, it's a daily challenge that tries to get you to the answer via three separate clues. It has a shareable score functionality to challenge your friends and new questions every day will give you a new daily social ritual. You can find it at thricegame.com.

Are you going on the show and looking for information about how to bet in Final Jeopardy? Check out my Betting Strategy 101 page. If you want to learn how to bet in two-day finals, check out Betting Strategy 102. In case the show uses a tournament with wild cards in the future, there is also a strategy page for betting in tournament quarterfinals.

Are you looking for information on how to stream Jeopardy! in 2026? Find out information here on how to stream from most places in North America!

You can find game-by-game stats here at The Jeopardy! Fan of all 23 players, including Caleb Groen, Adam Remsen, Tristan Williams and Jamie Ding, that have won 10 or more games on Jeopardy!

You can now listen to Alex Trebek-hosted Jeopardy! episodes from TuneIn Radio without leaving The Jeopardy! Fan — listen now!

Correct response: What is “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”?

More information about Final Jeopardy:

(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2025 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)

Written for the movie musical Meet Me In St. Louis, the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was written for Judy Garland’s character to cheer up her extremely upset younger sister; their family had to move to New York from their hometown of St. Louis because the father had received a job promotion. However, the movie’s cast criticized the song for being too depressing; thus, many of the lyrics were changed, including changing “It may be your last” to “Let your heart be light”.

Unfortunately, this Final Jeopardy clue might be made more difficult simply because it takes extra time to write down such a long song title; I’m hoping that none of our three players run out of time trying to write this one down.

In order to redesign our merchandise area to serve you better in 2026, all merchandise sales have been temporarily taken offline. Look for a return in late 2026! All previous orders will still be supported.

Game Recap:

In a game that saw the maximum gained on all three Daily Doubles, our three players combined for a Coryat score of over $50,000 and a total score of $57,800. An incorrect response on the final clue of Double Jeopardy meant that Melanie and Andrew were tied for the lead entering Final Jeopardy, and Aaron in a very close third.

Final Jeopardy saw both Andrew and Melanie go all in, but only Melanie was correct (along with Aaron, who bet $0), and she is your third finalist this week! She’ll play against Guy Branum and Michelle Tsai tomorrow and Friday.

Scores going into Final:

Melanie $20,400
Andrew $20,400
Aaron $17,000

Tonight’s results:

Aaron $17,000 + $0 = $17,000 (What is Have yourself a merry little Christmas?)
Andrew $20,400 – $20,400 = $0 (What Have a Holly Jolly Christmas?)
Melanie $20,400 + $20,400 = $40,800 (What is Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas) (Finalist)

Melanie Hirsch, today's Jeopardy! winner (for the December 24, 2025 game.)

Chances of winning Second Chance:

Guy Branum 27.014%
Michelle Tsai 38.837%
Melanie Hirsch 34.149%

If you are looking for more detailed statistics about today’s game of Jeopardy!, as well as the ability to leave a comment, make sure to check out the Daily Details section.

Andy’s Thoughts:

Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:

(Scores: Andrew $20,400 Melanie $20,400 Aaron $17,000)

Aaron: If both Andrew and Melanie make “game theory optimal” bets, any bet than isn’t $17,000 is fine. However, a lot of players don’t make game theory optimal betes. I would say the best defense against the biggest range of suboptimal bets here is anything between $6,801 (in case either player goes really small) and $10,199 (in case either player bets just to cover and are incorrect.) (Actual bet: $0)

Andrew: You have to defend against Melanie. Go all in. (Actual bet: $20,400)

Melanie: You have to defend against Andrew. Go all in. (Actual bet: $20,400)


The new TJ!F Plus section is active! In order to get the Daily Details of each episode coming soon, as well as the ability to comment on posts site-wide, make sure to register for your account! It should be noted that if you have not registered for an account since December 13, 2025, that registration for a new account is necessary.

Did you accidentally get logged out of your TJ!F Plus account? Log in here!

Become a Supporter now! Make a monthly contribution to the site on Patreon!

Contestant photo credit: jeopardy.com

When commenting, please note that all comments on The Jeopardy! Fan must be in compliance with the Site Comment Policy.

If you are going to quote any information from this page or this website, attribution is required.

Have you had a chance to listen to our podcast game show, Complete The List, yet? Check it out! It's also available on Apple Podcasts.
Powered by Labrador CMS