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Step by step · ages 3 to 8

Easy Christmas drawings for kids

A tree, a snowman, Santa and thirteen more, and every one of them draws itself while you watch.

16 Christmas drawings, most of them from our picture book The Christmas Secret. Each one appears on the screen line by line, in the order a hand draws it, in an easy version for ages 3 to 5 and a harder one for 6 to 8. Then print the step sheet and do it on paper.

Watch one draw itselfAll 16 drawingsStep sheets to print

Try this one first

Watch a Christmas tree draw itself

The red lines are the new ones. Draw them on your paper, then press Next step. The Christmas tree page has the video with a voice for every step.

Step 1 of 6

Let's draw a Christmas tree! First, a star right at the top.

16 Christmas drawings, step by step

Pick one. Each has its easy version and its harder one, a video and a step sheet.

All 16 in one video

Eight minutes and all sixteen drawings, easiest first: the Santa hat to start, Santa himself at the end. A narrator says each step, so it works on a TV with a pile of paper on the floor. Pause whenever the pencils fall behind, or tap a drawing below to skip to it.

Drawing with little ones

  • Draw next to them

    Draw your own on another sheet, at the same time, step by step. Children copy hands much better than pictures, and yours doesn't have to be good.

  • One step, then wait

    Press Next step only when everyone has drawn the red lines. If a line goes wrong, it's a new branch, or a patch of snow. Nothing on paper is a mistake at age four.

  • Big paper, thick pens

    Little hands draw big. A whole sheet for one snowman is fine, and a thick marker makes the lines confident even when the hand isn't.

Print · free, no sign-up

Every step sheet

Two pages each: every step with its words, then a frame to draw in. Black and white, US Letter or A4.

Free for home and classroom use. To pass them on, please share the link to this page and not the file.

Christmas coloring pages42 free pages of the same pictures and the whole story of our book, to print or to color on a phone or tablet.

Our own book

The Christmas Secret

A Christmas Eve picture book with a read-along · ages 3 to 7 · out on October 20

Santa, his red balloon, the snowmen and the gingerbread people on this page all live in our Christmas Eve picture book. A girl sees the balloon over the Golden Mountains and runs after it, all the way to a circus nobody is supposed to know about.

The Christmas Secret, pages 8 and 9: the girl sits on a bench in her snowy village behind three mountains
Pages 8 and 9, where the story starts. There's a Christmas tree to draw on this very page.
Out on October 20See inside the book

Questions

Grown-ups ask

What is the easiest Christmas drawing for a young child?

Santa's hat, a candy cane, a star and a Christmas tree: each has only a few big shapes. Start with the hat (three shapes) or the tree (a star, four wavy layers and a pot).

What's the difference between easy and a bit harder?

The easy drawings are for ages 3 to 5: few lines, big shapes, one new part at a time. A bit harder is for 6 to 8: the same subject with more details, like the fur on Santa's coat or the icing on the gingerbread house. Every subject has both.

Can I print the steps?

Yes, every subject has a free step sheet for each level, in US Letter or A4: page 1 shows every step with its words, page 2 is a frame to draw in. They're all listed further down this page, or in one file by email.

How do I teach my child to draw?

Draw together, side by side, one step at a time, and praise the trying rather than the result. Shapes come before pictures: circles, triangles, wavy lines. Every drawing here is built from those shapes in the order a hand would draw them.

What can we draw for Christmas besides these?

Your own family as snowmen, your street in the snow, a stocking for every person in the house, or the present you hope for. Once a child can draw a few shapes, the ideas page on each drawing has more.

Can I use these in class?

Of course. Put the drawing on the board and press Next step for the whole class, or print a step sheet for each table.

More Christmas

Or see all of them on one page, from the weeks before Christmas to the night itself.