Best 20 Advent Printable Activities for Christian Kids
Advent in our house starts the week before Thanksgiving, when I sneak the printer paper upstairs and quietly stock the ink. Not because I’m organized — because last December I waited until the 30th of November and discovered we were out of cyan, which apparently matters even for black-and-white coloring pages. The three-year-old doesn’t care about ink levels. She cares that there are new pages on the kitchen table every morning, and if there aren’t, she finds my phone and holds it up to my face until I fix it.
My husband does the Advent readings at night. Nine minutes, on average, preceded by ten minutes of rounding everyone up, one refusal to put down Legos, and the three-year-old dragging the camel figurine in from the living room because she decided the wise men needed it. We do Jesse Tree ornaments on some nights, countdown activities on others. The six-year-old is at the age where she remembers everything we did last year and will absolutely tell me if I forget something she liked. Pressure.
These are the printable resources I’ve actually used or bookmarked for this December — nativity clipart sets, coloring bundles, verse card designs, scene graphics the kids can color while my husband reads. I’ve organized them by how we use them in our rhythm. Heads up: some links below are affiliate links, so if you grab something through one it helps keep PsalmKids going at no extra cost to you.
Heads up: some links below are affiliate links. If you grab something through them it helps keep PsalmKids running, at no extra cost to you.
Christmas Nativity Clipart Set for Advent Coloring Time
We printed these as individual 5×7 sheets and taped them to the wall as we colored them through the four weeks — one character or scene per evening after the reading. The eight-year-old took Joseph, the six-year-old demanded Mary, and the three-year-old colored the star entirely brown, which she stands by.
Print on cardstock if you want them to last — regular paper curls once the kids press hard with crayons. This set works well because the line art is clear enough for a six-year-old but not so simplified it bores an eight-year-old. We ended up with a full gallery wall by Christmas Eve.
Layered Nativity Cross Scene for Older Kids to Assemble
The cross-and-nativity combination works as a conversation starter for older kids who are starting to understand why Christmas connects to Easter. My eight-year-old asked about it unprompted, which led to a longer reading night than usual — worth it.
This one’s SVG format, so if you have a Cricut you can cut layered versions for a window display. We don’t have a Cricut, so we printed it flat at 8×10 and used it as a coloring page instead. Works either way. Print at 90% scale so it fits standard paper without trimming.
Watercolor Nativity PNG Pages That Print Softly for Little Hands
The watercolor style means the colors are already partially there, which is helpful when you have a three-year-old who wants to participate but doesn’t have the focus for a full outline-to-finish coloring session. She traces over the existing colors and calls it done. Legitimate strategy.
These print best on matte photo paper — the colors stay true and don’t bleed. On regular copy paper they still look fine, just softer. I’ve used individual images from this set as gift tags by printing at wallet size, four to a page, and cutting them apart. Handy.
Cute Doodle Nativity Clipart for Countdown Chain Tags
We make a paper countdown chain every year. Twenty-five loops, one per day, and each one has a small image and a verse or activity written on it. The doodle style in this set scales down to about 1.5 inches without losing detail, which matters when you’re printing small.
I print the clipart images on cardstock, cut them to fit the chain loops, and write the activities on the back. The six-year-old tears one off each morning before breakfast. Last year she tore two on December 3rd and tried to pretend she hadn’t. The doodle style is friendly enough for the little one without looking babyish to the eight-year-old.
3D Layered Nativity SVG for a Table Centerpiece Kids Help Build
If you have a Cricut or Silhouette, this is the one that becomes the December centerpiece. We cut it in cream cardstock last year and it sat on the mantel for the whole season. The six-year-old helped fold the pieces, which took patience from both of us.
Without a cutting machine, you can still print the flat version and use it as a detailed coloring scene — it has enough layers that different sections feel distinct for kids to color in turns. Tip: print the non-Cricut version at 110% so the details are easier to handle with small scissors.
Cute Christmas Nativity Clipart Bundle for Verse Memory Cards
Each week of Advent we focus on one of the four themes — hope, peace, joy, love — and I make small verse cards to go in the kids’ rooms. This clipart bundle has enough variety that each card looks different without me designing anything from scratch. I use Canva, drop the images in, type the verse, print on cardstock, done.
The six-year-old keeps hers in a little tin on her nightstand and reads them when she wakes up. Whether she actually reads them or just likes having the tin is unclear. Either works. Print the cards at 3×4 inches so they fit standard picture frames if you want to display them.
Cute Nativity Scene Clipart Set With Individual Character Pages
Individual characters on separate pages is underrated. When you print one scene per page, three kids fight over who colors what. When you print one character per page, everyone has a clear assignment and the fighting drops significantly — not to zero, but significantly.
This set has enough characters that each kid gets multiple pages across the month. We do one or two per week during the readings. The eight-year-old has started adding backgrounds, which I did not teach him — he just started doing it. Cardstock makes these sturdy enough to keep in a little Advent folder.
Christmas Nativity Clipart Bundle for Multiple Activity Formats
A bundle format means you have images for coloring pages, card-making, countdown chains, and gift tags without buying separate sets. This one has wide enough variety — shepherd scenes, manger close-ups, full panoramas — that I can pick the right scale for whatever project we’re doing that week.
We used the panorama image as a placemat once. Printed at 11×17 at the library, laminated it with contact paper, used it for December dinners. The three-year-old ate on it every night and called it her Christmas table. Print the smaller individual characters at wallet size for sticker-style labels on gifts.
Kawaii Nativity Clipart for Kids Who Need a Gentler Visual Style
The kawaii style — big eyes, round shapes, soft expressions — gets mixed reactions from parents. But if you have a child who finds traditional nativity art a little serious or intimidating, the kawaii version opens a door. My three-year-old gravitates toward these immediately.
She colors the baby Jesus one roughly twice a week. We have eight versions of it on the fridge. I’ve stopped counting. The style also works well for classroom or Sunday school handouts because the characters are friendly without being cartoonish in a way that undermines the story. Print at 5×7 on bright white paper for the best color pop.
Classic Nativity Clip Art Set for Traditional Advent Booklets
Some years I put together a simple Advent booklet — eight pages, folded in half, one image per week with a verse and a small question for the kids to think about. This classic-style clip art is what I reach for when I want the art to feel like a real booklet, not a craft project.
The line work is clean and detailed enough that printing at smaller sizes still looks good. I print the booklets at 5.5×8.5, which is just a regular 8.5×11 sheet folded in half. Staple the spine. Takes about fifteen minutes to put together and the kids treat it like a real book, which is the whole point.
Stained Glass Nativity Window Art Kids Color With Markers
Stained glass coloring is different from regular coloring — the bold black outlines mean kids use markers instead of crayons, and the result actually looks like something when it’s taped to a window. We’ve done this two Advents in a row because the first year went so well.
Print on regular copy paper. Tape to a south-facing window. The colors glow for about three weeks before the tape gives out and it falls. Re-tape it. My husband has re-taped ours four times and he’s stopped complaining about it. Use Crayola washable markers for the three-year-old; the washable part matters.
3D Nativity SVG Templates Kids and Parents Build Together
This one takes a Saturday afternoon and parent involvement — it’s not a drop-and-go activity. But the result is a dimensional nativity scene the kids actually built, which sits on the shelf next to our ceramic one and, in their minds, is better.
The eight-year-old and I built it last December while the six-year-old colored the flat version and the three-year-old handed us pieces she had reorganized. Cricut or Silhouette gives clean cuts. Hand-cutting works if you’re patient and have decent scissors. Print on ivory or cream cardstock — white reads too stark once assembled.
Nativity Christmas Light Design for a Unique December Decoration
This one is more decorative than activity-based — a nativity rendered in a light-effect style that prints beautifully as a framed piece or a window display. It became part of our December mantel two years ago and I just reprint it each year because the kids have somehow never damaged the original. Miracle.
Print at 8×10 on glossy photo paper for the full effect — the light style really pops on glossy. Matte photo paper works too but the glow effect is subtler. We frame it in a cheap black frame from the dollar section and it looks intentional. No one needs to know it cost three cents of ink.
Nativity Journey Kids Clipart for Storytelling Activities
The journey framing — Mary and Joseph traveling, the shepherds coming from the fields, the wise men on the road — gives you material for telling the story in sequence rather than all at once. We spread it across the four weeks, one part of the journey per week, one character set at a time.
The six-year-old narrates while she colors, which means I get to hear her version of the Christmas story with some creative additions. Last year a sheep had a name and a backstory. Print each scene on a separate page and keep them in order in a folder — it becomes its own little picture-book by Christmas.
Christian Christmas Hand-Drawn Bundle for December Table Crafts
Hand-drawn style clipart has a warmth that printed-smooth graphics don’t, and this bundle leans into that. Stars, mangers, angels, candles — all with that slightly-imperfect line that makes them feel made rather than manufactured. Works for table activities where the kids are just sitting and coloring while we talk.
We use these for our Advent Sunday afternoons when my husband’s not doing youth group things and we have an hour to sit around the table without a schedule. Print a few pages at the start of each week and leave them in a folder the kids can reach. The three-year-old has never once asked permission — she just helps herself.
Nativity Scene Clipart 18 PNGs Full Set for Every Advent Week
Eighteen individual images means you have more than enough for all four weeks without repeating. I rotate through them — two or three per week depending on how long our readings go — and by the end of December every character in the Christmas story has been colored by at least one of my kids.
The PNG format means clean transparent backgrounds if you want to use them in digital projects, but they also just print directly as coloring pages with white backgrounds. Print a full set at the start of Advent and keep them in a binder with divider tabs by week. Takes twenty minutes to set up and saves a lot of scrambling on December evenings when nobody can find anything.
A Few Last Thoughts
We don’t finish everything I print. That’s the honest version of Advent in a house with a three-year-old who loses interest in page three and a six-year-old who suddenly wants to do everything perfectly and cries when the coloring goes outside the lines. The eight-year-old is the reliable one this year — he’ll sit with a nativity scene for twenty minutes without being asked, which I did not see coming.
What I’ve learned after a few Decembers is that the point isn’t finishing the activity. It’s that the kitchen table has something Christmas-shaped on it during breakfast, that the story is in front of them whether or not they’re paying full attention, that the wise men are on the roof again because someone three feet tall put them there. The printables are just the scaffolding.
If you grab one thing from this list, I’d say start with a nativity coloring set that has multiple characters on separate pages — you can hand out different figures to different kids and suddenly everyone has a job. Print extra shepherds. There are never enough shepherds. And check your ink in November.
More Bible Printables for Kids
- Christmas Nativity Printables for Christian Homeschool: 8 Favorites
- Sunday School Craft Printables My Class Begs For
- Best 20 Bible Story Printables for Sunday School Kids
- Best 20 Resurrection Sunday Printables for Kids
Frequently Asked Questions
What Advent activities does this set include for Christian kids?
It offers Advent-themed printables that count down to Christmas while keeping the focus on Jesus' birth, often with daily readings, coloring, or a simple activity for each day. Working through Advent day by day builds anticipation rooted in the Christmas story. It is a gentle way to slow down a busy December.
Can I reuse these Advent printables every December?
Yes, you keep the PDF so you can reprint the activities each Christmas season. Laminating any reusable cards or a countdown piece lets you bring them back year after year. Save the file in a labeled folder so it is ready next Advent.
Are these Advent activities good for a range of ages?
Most suit preschool through elementary, with simple coloring for the littles and readings or writing for older kids. In a homeschool the whole family can do Advent together at different levels. Check the preview so the activities fit your youngest.
