Free Christmas Word Search for Kids: 4 Printable Puzzles

Need a quiet Christmas activity for kids that takes five minutes to set up? Pick one of these four free Christmas word searches, choose Easy or Hard, and print the puzzle with its own answer key. There is a craft-table puzzle, a paper-village puzzle, a snowy winter puzzle and a Nativity puzzle drawn from Luke 2 and Matthew 2, so it works for a classroom, a party table or Sunday school.

Play or print the word search

Christmas craft word search

Here are the word lists. Enable JavaScript to generate and print a puzzle and answer key.

Christmas craft table

• SCISSORS
• GLUE
• PAPER
• CRAYONS
• MARKERS
• STICKERS
• RIBBON
• GLITTER
• TAPE
• STENCIL
• CARDSTOCK
• FOLD
• LANTERN
• STAR

Christmas paper village

• HOUSE
• CHURCH
• BAKERY
• CHIMNEY
• ROOF
• WINDOW
• DOOR
• LAMPPOST
• SNOWMAN
• SLED
• FENCE
• WREATH
• CANDYCANE
• GINGERBREAD

Snowy winter day

• SNOWFLAKE
• MITTENS
• SCARF
• ICICLE
• SNOWBALL
• PENGUIN
• REINDEER
• COCOA
• BOOTS
• FROST
• SKATES
• BLANKET

The first Christmas (Luke 2, Matthew 2)

• MARY
• JOSEPH
• JESUS
• BETHLEHEM
• MANGER
• ANGEL
• SHEPHERDS
• FLOCK
• STAR
• SAVIOR
• GOLD
• MYRRH
• GIFTS
• INN

Ready to make something? Our best-selling Christmas craft is a set of 5 paper lanterns kids colour, cut and fold.

Pick the right puzzle for your group

Christmas craft table is full of the things kids are about to use: scissors, glue, ribbon, glitter and cardstock. It makes a nice warm-up before a craft session, because children read the supply words just before they reach for them.

Christmas paper village follows the little houses, bakery and church of a festive village, with a chimney, a lamppost and a gingerbread house to find. Snowy winter day keeps to mittens, penguins, icicles and cocoa, so it suits any December day, not just Christmas week.

The first Christmas uses words from the Bible's Christmas story: Mary and Joseph, Bethlehem, the manger, the angel, the shepherds and their flock, the star, and the gold and myrrh brought by the wise men. Read Luke 2:1-20 or Matthew 2:1-12 aloud first, then let children find the words they just heard.

Make it part of a craft session

A word search is a handy early-finisher job. Keep a small stack of printed puzzles by the craft table, and anyone who finishes colouring early can take one while the glue dries. Pair a strong reader with a younger child and let them circle words together.

On screen, tap the first and last letter of a word to mark it. On paper, circle the letters and tick the word off the list. Keep the answer key with the grown-up until everyone is ready to check.

Turn the words into a Christmas craft

If the puzzle gets the group talking about lanterns and little houses, these are the printable crafts the words come from. Our best-selling Christmas craft is the lantern set: five designs, each in colour and black and white, that kids cut, fold and glue into a freestanding lantern.

For a bigger table project, the Christmas paper house bundle has five houses to colour, cut, roll and glue, each with a cone roof, a base and decorations.

For a whole-class display, the 3D Christmas village bundle has 10 buildings with roofs, floors, bases and 160 standing accessories, printed on A4.

No printer ink to spare? The puzzles still work for free on a tablet, one child at a time, and you can draw a simple paper house together on scrap paper while you wait.