3 Fun and Easy Christian Christmas Crafts
Plan some simple and fun Christmas crafts that focus on the Christian themes of the season rather than the secular imagery associated with Christmas. In general, Christian crafts focus on the biblical story of the first Christmas, including the angels, nativity scene and the bright star over Bethlehem. These crafts are an easy way to keep kids, and even crafty adults, occupied during cold December days while reminding them what the holiday is about.
Star Ornaments
In the biblical story, wise men follow a bright star to find Jesus, worship him and bring him gifts. One craft to remember this story is to create sparkling star ornaments to hang on the Christmas tree. When you see them, they offer reminders to look for Jesus during the Christmas season. Make simple ornaments by cutting stars out of cardboard, spreading a thin layer of glue on them and sprinkling gold and silver glitter all over the stars. Punch a hole in the top of each one and tie a ribbon through it to hang the ornament. For another type of star ornament craft, bend craft wire into a star shape and wrap metallic gold chenille pipes around the star frame to decorate it.
Cardboard Roll Nativity
Create a homemade nativity scene using simple craft materials and cardboard toilet paper roll centers. Kids can create the characters, including Mary, Joseph, shepherds and wise men, by gluing fabric or felt scraps to the paper towel rolls as their cloaks. Use small round pieces of fabric held on with pieces of string for head coverings. Cut a cardboard toilet paper roll open along one side, fold the edges to make a trough shape and glue small dowels to the bottom of it to it to make a manger. Make baby Jesus by drawing a face on a clothespin and swaddling it with cloth. Create animals out of toilet paper rolls by painting them or gluing cotton balls to them and using small dowels for legs.
Angel Figures
Angels played several roles in the Christian Christmas story. An angel announced the birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph and a whole choir of angels told the shepherds about Jesus' birth on the night he was born. Create small angel figures to decorate the home. For each one, place a small styrofoam ball on top of a small plastic water bottle. Drape a piece of white cloth over the whole thing and use gold ribbon to tie it in place around the neck of the bottle. Use glue to add hair made from yarn and wings made from paper doilies painted with glue and glitter. Draw on a face with markers and add a halo by bending a gold chenille pipe and sticking it into the styrofoam ball. Kids can also use their own creative ideas to decorate the angels or create musical instruments for them to hold.
