christmas coloring pages

The tree in this pack sits in a flowerpot with a smiling star and round baubles. It is an apartment tree, not a forest. That is the sheet to print the weekend you actually decorate, usually the first weekend of December. A preschooler can fill the triangles with two colors and call it done. A school-age kid who already hangs real ornaments will color bauble by bauble, then the star, which is how they ornament a real tree. Let it be any colors. Living-room trees are not all hunter green, and tinsel is worse.

If you want a wall of trees for a classroom, this is the one to copy in bulk. It reads as “tree” from across the room. Do not pair it with the snowy window in the same sitting; that page has its own distant trees and will steal twenty minutes you do not have.

There is no Santa portrait in this set. The two sheets that sit next to that search are a wooden sleigh stacked with bowed gifts, and a pile of wrapped boxes on their own. Kids who came here for Santa still get the job: color the sleigh as if it is mid-route, decide what is in the boxes, leave the driver’s seat empty or invent someone. Classrooms that cannot use a licensed Claus can still run a “what is he delivering?” table with these two pages.

Save them for wrapping week, not for the first of December. A sleigh full of presents in early December, before anyone in the house has bought a gift, feels like jumping ahead. On December 22, it matches the living room. The sleigh is wide; print a test so the runners do not clip. Crayons are enough. Markers turn the stacked boxes into one brown stain.

There is no snowman in this set either. The two sheets that carry the snow are a candle on a windowsill with trees and flakes outside, and a pair of snowflake mittens over a wavy scarf. That is snowman weather, not a snowman. Print them when you actually have cold at the glass — in much of the U.S., the second half of December — or whenever a child is stuck inside and wants winter on paper.

The mittens are the easy page: repeating shapes, toddler-friendly, good for the week of indoor recess. The window is the slow page. Curtain folds, panes, a candle face, distant trees. Give it to an older kid or an adult after bedtime. Colored pencils beat crayons on the holly-sized details in the glass. If you promised a snowman and you only have these, say so before the crayons come out. Kids forgive a window. They do not forgive being told a scarf is a snowman.

Five gingerbread people on a round plate, each with a bow tie and icing trim. This is the busiest food sheet in the pack, and it belongs next to real cookies if you can manage it. Little kids should not start here. Give them the smiling cocoa mug first — one cup, whipped cream, marshmallows, a candy cane — and let older kids ice both the real gingerbread and the paper one. Do not put markers next to food. Crayons or pencils only in a kitchen.

Teachers: this is a party-week page, not a first-week-of-December page. It takes longer than cocoa and shorter than the window. Each cookie can be a different icing job, which is useful when you need the table to stay sitting. At home, print it the night you bake. A gingerbread plate in week one, before anyone has opened the molasses, is just a brown cartoon.

One stocking on a brick fireplace, a small tree on the mantel, a holly sprig, a fire. It is a single household, not a mall display. Print it when the real stocking goes up, often the same weekend as the tree. Younger kids can color the stocking and the flames and ignore the brick. School-age kids will do the mortar lines and argue about whether the fire is yellow or orange.

This is also the classroom mantel trick: every child colors a stocking, you tape them in a row, and you are done with “our December wall” without a licensed character. Copy it in the first two weeks of December, not the day of the class party. The fireplace is a lot of small rectangles; 24 lb paper wrinkles less than cheap copy paper if someone works it for a long time. Movie night is the unplanned use. Print this before you press play. Kids color during the slow first act. That still counts.

Four ornaments hang from a pine branch: a round bauble, a teardrop, a star, and a bell, each with a small face. The matching household object is the door wreath — holly, baubles, a large bow — which is also a hanging decoration, just on a different hook. Print the branch page when you unpack the ornament box. Print the wreath when it actually goes on the door, or as the adult sheet after bedtime. The wreath has clusters that reward a pencil; the branch is the one kids finish.

Faces on ornaments will get goofy colors. Let them. The point of an ornament page is many small objects, not a correct palette. If several ages share a table, put crayons on the branch and pencils on the wreath. Markers will bleed from one bauble into the next. Light cardstock is worth it if the wreath is going on the fridge until New Year’s.