Christmas Lessons for Kids

Nativity Rehearsal

Practicing a Nativity play is a great way to be able to talk to kids about Christmas. As you rehearse you can identify characters and recap what happened and point out not just what the humans were doing but how God was at work. With older kids you can identify what our false expectations are (3 kings, a hurry to get a room, angels are cute) and focus on the wonder of the incarnation. Talk about where the nativity fits into the whole story of salvation and about why people need to hear about what happened.

Some helpful questions:

  • How would [your character] have felt at this point?

  • Why do you think God chose [Mary, Joseph, Shepherds, Wise Men, Bethlehem, a Star, 4BC]?

  • Can you think of any other special babies in the Bible? How is Jesus different?

  • What do you think the most important part of the Christmas story is?

  • Why do we tell the Christmas story every year?

  • Who would you like to come to the nativity and why?

You can find a bunch of Nativity scripts for different groups and ages below and some very helpful tips on getting pre-school kids involved.

Christmas LEssons

If you are kicking off a new series of lessons for the New Year why not build your Christmas lesson into the mix by starting with Jesus Meets Humanity from this series in John’s gospel. This pulls from Luke and Matthew to tell the Christmas story but the Focus is on what does it mean for Jesus to be the Word from John 1. This could be a stand alone lesson or lead you into talking about some of the other people Jesus meets in John’s gospel.

Another one-off lesson you could take from a series for Christmas is You Can Trust God Because He Came to Earth. This whole series was a lockdown project of video lessons, each using a video from Crossroads Kids Club and with games, prayers, questions and a worksheet to accompany them. If you’re doing the non-story parts live then you can 100% do this whole series and drop this lesson in whenever Christmas hits. Or, of course, do it on it’s own.

If you’ve put the story of the Wise Men from Matthew 2 on your plan you should check out these 3 different ways of teaching it. Each one of the themes lends a different perspective which is great if it’s a story you teach every year, and you don’t want to run the exact same lesson. Or you could take three Sundays in December and teach it a different way each time and show your kids the richness of the Bible!

Stories for Pre-Schoolers

Great for advent in your creche or playgroup or with a little bit of adaptation it could also work for older kids. These stories both called God’s King is coming; one is the last in the Old Testament series: The King is Coming, covering Isaiah, and the other is the first in it’s New Testament equivalent: The King is Here, talking about John the Baptist. Asking a few questions such as,

  • What does this story tell us about what God is like?

  • Where and when does this story happen? How long before Christmas?

  • How does this story make you think differently about Christmas?

can help to bring the focus back to the incarnation for older kids. Instead of using the craft suggested in the session you could use a more Christmassy craft instead.

I hope you enjoy teaching the wonders of Christmas - and do keep coming back because more will be added here.