See the coloring book below
December fills up fast. There are school programs, church and work parties, shopping lists, wrapping and a dozen “we should really” traditions we saw somewhere online. By the middle of the month it’s easy to feel like Christmas is happening to the family instead of with it.
A family coloring night is one of the simplest fixes we know. Print a few Christmas coloring pages, pour the cocoa, put on the carols and sit down at the same table for an hour. Toddlers, teens, parents and grandparents can all do it at once, it costs very little, and at the end you have something to hang on the fridge or tuck into a card for Grandma.
Why a coloring night works in December
The holidays are joyful, and they’re a lot. In the American Psychological Association’s 2023 holiday stress poll of 2,061 U.S. adults, nearly nine in 10 said something causes them stress during the season, and money topped the list: 58 percent said spending too much or not having enough to spend stresses them out. The same release has a hopeful line, though. APA’s chief executive said that “setting aside time to strengthen our relationships and engage in traditions” can benefit our well-being, and 84 percent of adults said the season creates a sense of togetherness.
A coloring night is a tradition that fits that bill without adding to the bill. And there’s a little research behind the calm feeling, too:
- Twenty minutes of coloring helped grown-ups settle. In a randomized study of 120 older adults, those who spent 20 minutes coloring mandala designs after a stressful task reported lower anxiety than a group that read instead, and felt more “calmed down,” “at ease” and “rested.” It was one short session in one group of adults, so it’s a hint, not a promise.
- Free drawing seems to work just as well. A review of eight studies with 578 adults found that coloring mandalas didn’t lower anxiety more than free drawing did, and the authors call for more high-quality studies. Good news for families: if a little one would rather draw her own Christmas tree than color inside the lines, that counts too.
- Crayons are good for little hands. The CDC’s milestones for 3-year-olds list drawing a circle when you show them how, and its tips for this age include giving your child an “activity box” with paper, crayons and coloring books and coloring lines and shapes together.
Mostly, though, a coloring night works because everyone’s hands are busy and nobody has to perform. Kids talk more when they aren’t being looked at, and grown-ups slow down when there’s nothing to fix.
Just asking: What do you want your kids to remember about this Christmas? Is it the gifts, or the evenings when everyone was home at the same table?
How to host a cozy family coloring night
Family coloring night, step by step
- Print a page for everyone. Choose one page per person (plus a spare) using the age guide below. Let each person pick their own if you can. Choosing is half the fun.
- Set the table. Clear the kitchen table, lay down a cheap tablecloth or butcher paper, and set out one cup of crayons and one of colored pencils in the middle so everyone shares.
- Pour the cocoa and start the carols. Turn the big lights down and the Christmas lights on. Phones go in a basket on the counter for the hour, grown-ups’ too.
- Color and talk. Put a few Christmas questions in a bowl and pass it around every ten minutes or so. Nobody has to answer. Most people will.
- Play one quick game. When the little ones start to wiggle, switch to a no-prep family Christmas game for ten minutes.
- Finish with a show-and-tell. Everyone holds up their page. Then decide together: hang it, frame it or give it to someone. (Ideas in what to do with finished pages.)
That’s it. No craft supplies to hunt down, no glitter on the floor, and you can stop whenever the baby needs to go to bed.
Christmas coloring pages by age
The secret to a happy coloring night is a page that fits the hand holding the crayon. Too detailed and a five-year-old gives up. Too simple and a teenager feels like it’s for babies.
See the coloring book below
Little ones
- Big, simple shapes: one star, one stocking, one snowman. Or skip the page and give them blank paper to draw their own tree.
- Chunky crayons are easier to grip than thin markers. Expect scribbles, and celebrate them.
- Sit them next to a grown-up and color together. That’s the whole point at this age.
Big kids
- Pages with bold, thick outlines and a few medium-sized areas, like a snowman family or a little cottage in the pines.
- Crayons or washable markers. Cardstock keeps markers from bleeding through.
- Give them a small “job” on a shared page, like coloring all the presents, so they feel part of the family picture.
Tweens
- Detailed scenes with lots of little areas: a village street, a cookie table, a horse-drawn carriage in the snow.
- Colored pencils work best. Suggest coloring one area at a time so a big page doesn’t feel overwhelming.
- Let them try shading or a limited palette (only reds, greens and golds) for a retro Christmas-card look.
The fine-detail crowd
- Realistic, detailed scenes they’d actually want to frame: a snowy farmhouse porch, stockings by the fire, a cat curled up by the tree.
- Good colored pencils or fine-tip markers. Teens often enjoy finishing a page over two or three nights.
- Grandparents are usually the most patient colorists at the table. Seat a grandparent next to a teen and see what happens.
Our Cozy Christmas Coloring Book was made for this kind of mixed table. Most of its 21 country Christmas scenes are detailed enough for older kids, teens and grown-ups, and two pages (the little cottage in the snowy pines and the snowman family) have bolder lines for younger colorists or tired evenings. Little ones can draw their own picture right alongside.
How to print Christmas coloring sheets at home
- Print at 100% (“actual size”). “Fit to page” can shrink the margins and cut off the edges.
- Choose black and white or grayscale. Line art doesn’t need color ink, and grayscale saves your color cartridges.
- Pick the paper for the tools. Regular printer paper is fine for crayons and colored pencils. Bright white cardstock holds up better to markers and makes a page sturdy enough to frame or mail.
- Print extras of the favorites. With a printable, you can print the same page for every child, so nobody fights over the snowman.
- Make mini cards and tags. Print a page at 25 to 50 percent size, color it and cut it out for a gift tag or a little card.
Christmas questions to talk about while you color
Busy hands make for easy conversation. Put a few of these in a bowl, or just ask one when it gets quiet. They’re sorted by age so everyone gets one they can answer.
Little ones
- What’s your favorite Christmas song? Can you sing it for us?
- Who was born on the very first Christmas?
- If you could give baby Jesus a present, what would it be?
- Who would you like to give your picture to?
Big kids
- What’s a Christmas tradition you hope we never stop?
- Which person in the Christmas story would you like to have been, and why?
- What’s the best Christmas memory you have so far?
- If you could give anyone in the world a gift that doesn’t cost money, what would it be?
Tweens and teens
- Why do you think the first Christmas happened in a stable and not a palace?
- What’s a gift you’ve been given that cost nothing but meant a lot?
- Who might feel lonely this Christmas, and what could we do about it?
- What tradition do you want to keep when you have a home of your own?
For parents and grandparents
- What was Christmas morning like when you were a kid?
- Is there an ornament on our tree with a story behind it?
- Tell us about a Christmas when money was tight but it still felt wonderful.
For one night, read the Christmas story together before you start. Luke 2 is short enough for little ones and still moves the grown-ups: the shepherds, the angel’s “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” and the heavenly host singing “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Let everyone color while you read.
Want more questions? Our family dinner conversation starters guide has dozens sorted by age, and the Family Dinner Conversation Cards print 60 of ours in four color-coded sets, including a Family Stories set that’s perfect when the grandparents are visiting for the holidays.
Easy family Christmas games (no prep)
These family Christmas games use what’s already on the table: paper, pencils and voices. Each takes about ten minutes and works for mixed ages.
- Christmas draw-and-guess. Write Christmas words on slips (star, stocking, manger, reindeer, candy cane, snowman). One person draws while everyone guesses. Pair little ones with a teen.
- Finish the carol. One person sings the first line of a carol and stops. Everyone else finishes the line. Grandparents usually win.
- Pass the page. Every three minutes, everyone passes their coloring page to the left and adds a little color to someone else’s. At the end, each page has a bit of everyone on it.
- Christmas charades. Act out a carol, a Christmas movie or a part of the Nativity story without words.
- Ornament I spy. Take turns: “I spy an ornament that is round and gold.” Little ones love this one.
- Two true memories and a tall tale. Each person shares three “Christmas memories,” one made up. Everyone guesses which is the tall tale.
Four cozy coloring nights in December
If you’d like a simple plan for the month, try one coloring night a week. Pick the same night each week (a Sunday evening or your family night works well) so nobody has to remember.
A simple December plan
- Week 1: The front door. Color wreaths, porches and snowy houses, then tape the finished pages to the front door or the fridge so the house feels like Christmas.
- Week 2: Cards for people we love. Print pages at half size, two to a sheet, and color cards for grandparents, neighbors, teachers, missionaries or a service member far from home.
- Week 3: The kitchen. Color the cookie and kitchen pages, then bake one simple batch of cookies and deliver a plate to a neighbor together.
- Christmas Eve: The story. Read Luke 2, color by the tree and let each person choose one page to keep for the family Christmas box.
Busy month? Do Week 2 and Christmas Eve and call it a win.
What to do with finished pages
- Frame one. A colored page in an 8x10 frame on the mantel looks like real Christmas art, and it’s one your kids made.
- Mail it. A colored page folded into a card is a gift grandparents keep for years.
- Make placemats. Lay colored pages under clear contact paper for Christmas dinner placemats.
- Make tags. Mini pages printed at 25 to 50 percent size become one-of-a-kind gift tags.
- Build a door gallery. Tape pages around a doorway and add one each coloring night.
- Save the best. Write each person’s name and age on the back, and keep a few in an envelope labeled with the year. Pulling them out next December is half the fun.
Keep it calm: screens, budget and candles
Screens
The basket-for-phones rule is what makes a coloring night feel different from every other night. If a new phone, tablet or game system is coming this Christmas, it helps to agree on the rules before the box is opened. Our screen time rules for kids guide walks through a simple family agreement, and the CDC’s tips for 3-year-olds suggest limiting screens to no more than an hour a day of children’s programs with an adult present. The Family Screen Time Agreement printable puts your rules on one page the whole family signs.
Budget
With money the top holiday stressor in APA’s poll, it’s nice to have a tradition that costs a few cents of printer ink. A few gentle ways to keep the rest of Christmas on budget:
- Set one total first. Decide what Christmas will cost as a whole (gifts, food, travel, giving) before the first purchase, then divide it by name.
- Give homemade gifts. A framed coloring page, a plate of cookies or a card from the kids is often the gift people remember.
- Start next year’s fund in January. A sinking fund is money you set aside every month for a cost you know is coming. Divide next Christmas’s total by the months left. For example, $600 ÷ 12 months is $50 a month. The Simple Family Budget Planner has a sinking-funds page with a “Christmas & holidays” fund already on it.
Cozy, not risky
- December is the peak month. The National Fire Protection Association says 12 percent of home candle fires happen in December, and Christmas is the peak day.
- Try flameless candles. NFPA’s candle safety tips suggest flameless candles, which look like the real thing and are much safer on a table full of paper.
- If you do light one, keep it at least 1 foot from anything that can burn (like a stack of coloring pages), use a sturdy holder on an uncluttered surface, and blow it out when you leave the room.
- Kids and flames. Never leave a child alone in a room with a burning candle, and keep matches and lighters up high and out of reach.
Common hiccups (and easy fixes)
- “My toddler scribbled on his brother’s page.” Give the toddler his own big sheet of paper taped to the table, and seat him next to a grown-up instead of a sibling.
- “My teen says coloring is for little kids.” Hand them a detailed page and good pencils, and ask them to color one for a grandparent. Or put them in charge of the music and the cocoa.
- “Someone always gets upset about going outside the lines.” Say it out loud at the start: there’s no wrong way. Color the snow purple if you like.
- “We’re traveling for the holidays.” Pack a folder of printed pages and a zip-top bag of crayons. It works at Grandma’s table or in a hotel room.
- “This Christmas is a hard one.” Leave room for that. Coloring a page for someone who’s missed this year can be a gentle way to talk about them.
- “We got through ten minutes, not an hour.” Ten minutes together counts. Try again next week.
Printables that make it easy
The Cozy Christmas Coloring Book gives you 21 detailed country Christmas scenes (snowy cottages, a farmhouse porch, a lamplit village street, a gingerbread cottage, cookies in the kitchen and stockings by the fire), with two bolder pages for younger colorists. It comes as US Letter and A4 PDFs plus 300 DPI PNG files for tablets, and you can print your favorite pages as many times as your family needs. The line art was made by our shop with the help of AI image tools, then checked page by page and cleaned into pure black lines.
Get the Cozy Christmas Coloring Book · $4.50
Tap to get it →
Cozy Christmas Coloring Book
21 detailed country Christmas scenes, two bolder pages, US Letter + A4 PDFs and 300 DPI PNGs.
Get the Christmas coloring book, $4.50 on Etsy
Tap to get it →
Family Dinner Conversation Cards
60 questions in 4 color-coded sets (3–6, 7–11, 12+ and Family Stories), great for holiday tables.
Get the Family Dinner Conversation Cards, $4.50 on Etsy
Tap to get it →
Simple Family Budget Planner
A monthly budget, bill tracker, debt payoff page and sinking funds, including one for Christmas.
Get the Simple Family Budget Planner, $4.50 on Etsy
Tap to get it →
Family Screen Time Agreement
House rules, a signed family agreement and a weekly tracker, ready before a new device arrives.
Get the Screen Time Agreement, $4.50 on EtsyNot ready to buy anything? Start with the free 5-Minute Family Reset Checklist. A quick all-hands tidy after coloring night means the table is clear for breakfast.
More simple guides: Thanksgiving gratitude activities (a great warm-up for December), dinner conversation starters, how to run a family meeting for planning the month together, screen time rules, weekly meal planning and a weekly marriage meeting for keeping the holiday calendar on the same page.
A closing note
Christmas doesn’t need to be bigger to be better. The cocoa will spill, someone will color the snowman green, and the toddler will insist the snow should be purple. That’s fine. What kids remember is the feeling of everyone home at the same table, with the lights on and the carols playing, remembering the Child whose birth we celebrate.
This week, try just one thing: print a page for everyone and pick a night. Let the crayons do the rest.
Sources
- American Psychological Association (2023). Even a joyous holiday season can cause stress for most Americans (press release, Nov 30, 2023), via Newswise. Survey of 2,061 U.S. adults by The Harris Poll, Nov 14–16, 2023.
- Koo M, Chen HP, Yeh YC (2020). Coloring Activities for Anxiety Reduction and Mood Improvement in Taiwanese Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Study. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2020:6964737.
- Jakobsson Støre S, Jakobsson N (2022). The Effect of Mandala Coloring on State Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Art Therapy 39(4):173–181.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Learn the Signs. Act Early. Milestones by 3 Years.
- National Fire Protection Association. Fire Safety Tips for Cold Weather (Put a Freeze on Winter Fires).
- National Fire Protection Association. Candle Safety tip sheet (PDF).
- Luke 2:10–14, King James Version, via ChurchofJesusChrist.org scriptures.
Making the Day Count is not affiliated with or endorsed by the American Psychological Association, the CDC, the National Fire Protection Association or any of the researchers cited here. The coloring night steps, age suggestions, questions, games, December plan and tips in this guide are our own. This guide is general information, not medical or safety advice beyond the official guidance linked above.
