Printable Christmas Tree, Ornament and Gift Coloring Pages

Before tree lots existed, anyone wanting a Christmas tree in a city generally had to cut one themselves or know someone with woodland access. That changed in 1851, when a farmer named Mark Carr hauled two ox-sleds loaded with trees from the Catskill Mountains into New York City and sold them from a sidewalk spot near Greenwich Street. The idea of buying a pre-cut tree in an urban lot caught on quickly, and by the following decades, seasonal tree lots had become a familiar sight in cities across the country, run by farmers, church groups, and civic organizations looking to raise money each December.

Download this free printable or print it instantly for classroom holiday-tradition lessons, home coloring time, or a family tree-trimming activity.

Holly has an even older seasonal history. Because the plant stays green in winter and produces bright red berries, it was used in winter decoration long before modern Christmas trees were common. In Britain especially, holly became strongly tied to Christmas greenery along with ivy and mistletoe. The leaves are easy to recognize because of their pointed edges, and that shape made holly useful in printed decorations, cards, wrapping paper, and church arrangements. When holly is paired with a hanging ornament, the image brings together two different strands of holiday symbolism: natural winter greenery and later tree-trimming traditions. That is one reason the combination feels both traditional and decorative at the same time.

This ornament page is useful when you want a simple Christmas printable that still feels festive and easy to personalize with patterns.

Christmas ornaments grew from several older traditions.

Ornaments and bows were added as wreath traditions expanded beyond plain greenery. Glass ornaments became especially popular after German makers in places like Lauscha began producing decorative baubles in the 1800s. Holly leaves and bright red berries also became closely tied to Christmas decoration because the plant held its color well in winter and already had a long history in seasonal greenery. A large ribbon bow gives the wreath a clear focal point and helps tie different materials together visually. In some homes, the bow sits at the top, while in others it hangs at the bottom. Door wreaths, mantel wreaths, and window wreaths can all look slightly different, but the mix of greenery, ornaments, and ribbon keeps the decoration immediately recognizable.

This wreath page works well for quick holiday coloring because the main shape is clear and the decorations can be colored in many different ways.

Hanging greenery on a door during the darkest weeks of the year predates Christmas by centuries. Ancient Rome marked the winter festival of Saturnalia with wreaths of laurel and evergreen hung on doorways as a gesture of celebration and welcome, and similar customs appear in other pre-Christian European winter traditions that used evergreen boughs to represent life continuing through the cold months. When Christianity spread across Europe, many of these existing winter greenery customs were folded into Christmas rather than replaced, which is part of why a plain green ring on the door still feels so timeless today.

Pinecones earned their spot on the wreath mostly through convenience.

Download or print instantly, no sign-up needed. A great fit for classroom door decorating units, home craft time, and simple seasonal activities.

Nobody set out to invent a Christmas decoration when Erwin Perzy, an Austrian instrument mechanic, was tinkering with surgical lamps around 1900. Perzy was trying to boost the brightness of a lamp by surrounding the bulb with reflective particles suspended in water, and while testing the idea he used tiny flecks of semolina, a wheat-based grain product, instead of glass. The semolina drifted down through the water slowly, looking uncannily like falling snow, and Perzy realized the failed lamp experiment had produced something people might actually want to buy.

He shifted his workshop toward building small glass domes filled with miniature scenes, and by 1905 he had founded a company in Vienna to sell them.

Long before any printed calendar existed, German Protestant families in the 1800s counted down to Christmas by drawing a simple chalk line on a door or wall for each passing day in December. Some households lit a small candle instead, one more each night, letting a growing row of flames mark how close the holiday had come. The word "advent" comes from a Latin term meaning "arrival," describing the entire waiting period before Christmas Day.

Other early versions used a straw stalk pulled from a bundle every morning, or a picture torn from a strip and pinned to the wall.

Snowflakes entered Christmas imagery through winter rather than through one single custom. In colder parts of Europe and North America, Christmas often arrived with snow, so snow crystals, icy windows, and white landscapes became part of how the holiday was pictured. Once printing technology improved, stylized snowflakes became common in wrapping paper, greeting cards, school decorations, and ornaments. Real snowflakes are six-sided ice crystals, but artists usually simplify them into clean repeating patterns so they are easier to draw and recognize. That means snowflakes became not only a weather symbol, but also a design symbol. When snowflakes are paired with a candy cane, the scene combines a holiday sweet with a winter pattern people already connect to December.

This illustration is a good option when you want a holiday sheet without a full character scene but still want strong Christmas and winter symbols.

Candy canes became another common stocking item over time. The striped sugar stick likely developed from earlier white sugar rods sold at fairs and churches, with the red stripes becoming common later in the United States. Peppermint made them especially associated with winter because the flavor felt cool and fresh. Wrapped gifts are a separate tradition with a longer history tied to winter feasts, New Year customs, and later Christmas shopping habits. Decorative paper, ribbons, and bows made present-giving feel more festive, and by the twentieth century the visual pairing of stockings and presents was everywhere in greeting cards, magazines, home decorations, and department store displays.

Use this stocking page for quick holiday table activities or classroom December centers. The candy cane stripes, present ribbons, and stocking cuff make it easy to practice bold color choices.

Christmas stockings are tied to stories about Saint Nicholas, a bishop later associated with gift-giving in Europe.

Toy trains have circled Christmas trees since the late 1800s, when early tin and cast-iron models were built sturdy enough to survive rough handling by excited children on Christmas morning. Wrapping a track in a loop around the tree base became a popular display method because it kept the moving train contained in one visible ring.

The Lionel Corporation, founded in 1900, helped popularize electric toy trains in American homes, and by the mid-1900s a Lionel set circling the Christmas tree had become a common holiday image in advertising and family photographs. Electric power let trains run continuously without the hand-cranking or clockwork winding earlier models required.

Print this free Christmas Toy Train Coloring Page for a classroom holiday center, homeschool unit, or quiet-time activity at home.

The earliest English rocking horses appeared in the first half of the 1600s as flat wooden cutouts shaped like a horse in profile and mounted on a pair of curved bow rockers. These simple toys let a small child rock back and forth safely, but they had none of the rounded, sculptural detail that later versions would develop. Over the following century, woodworkers began carving fuller three-dimensional bodies, adding a raised saddle, a real mane made of horsehair or wool, and a tail, transforming a flat silhouette into something that genuinely resembled a small horse.

By the 1800s, rocking horse making had become a specialized craft in England, with workshops such as F.H.

Decorative wrapping paper as a mass-market product traces back to a specific moment in 1917, when a stationery store in Kansas City sold out of the plain white and red tissue paper it normally used for gifts. The store owners began selling colorful French envelope-lining paper instead, and it sold so quickly that they brought in more the following year. That store eventually became a major greeting card and wrapping paper company, and the printed gift wrap it popularized replaced plain tissue as the standard way to dress up a present within a few decades.

Long before colorful printed rolls existed, gifts were commonly wrapped in whatever material a household had on hand, including plain tissue paper, newspaper, or scraps of cloth, tied closed with string or a length of ribbon.

Download this free printable or print it right away for classroom gift-giving lessons, home coloring time, and holiday party tables.

Gift-giving during the Christmas season did not always happen on December 25 itself. Many older European customs placed gift exchanges on December 6, Saint Nicholas Day, or on Christmas Eve, and only gradually did December 25 morning become the single fixed moment families associate with unwrapping presents.

As decorated Christmas trees spread through homes in the 1800s, gifts began appearing beneath the branches rather than only inside stockings, giving rise to the now-familiar pile of wrapped boxes under a lit tree. That shift turned Christmas morning into a small staged event, with the tree acting as the centerpiece for the whole unwrapping ritual.

One-piece footed sleepers date back to the early 1900s as a practical way to keep children warm overnight without loose blankets slipping off, and by the mid-1900s they had become a familiar sight in Christmas morning photographs. The built-in feet meant no socks were needed before dashing to the tree, which is part of why footed pajamas still show up in holiday catalogs and cards today.

Many families let children unwrap a single gift the night before or the very first thing on Christmas morning, a custom that draws out the excitement before the rest of the presents are opened together later.

Print this free Christmas Pajamas Coloring Page for a Christmas morning classroom activity, homeschool craft, or quiet-time coloring session at home.

The bright wrapping paper torn open in a scene like this one is younger than most holiday traditions. Before the early 1900s, gifts were usually wrapped in plain brown paper or tissue. That changed almost by accident in 1917, when a Kansas City stationery store ran out of the usual tissue paper and started selling decorative envelope-lining paper instead. It sold out fast, and printed wrapping paper became its own industry within a few years.

Ribbons and bows followed a similar path. Curling ribbon, the kind that gets dragged along a scissor blade to spiral, wasn't invented until the 1930s.

The moment of gathering around the Christmas tree to open gifts is one of the most cherished holiday memories a child can have, and this coloring sheet captures that warm, excited family scene in a way that will resonate deeply with kids of all ages.

The wooden nutcracker figure traces back to woodcarving traditions in Germany's Erzgebirge region, where craftsmen carved functional nutcrackers shaped like people starting in the 1600s and 1700s. Turning a simple lever-jaw tool into a stern-faced soldier or king gave the object a decorative role well beyond just cracking shells.

Carving nutcrackers as kings, soldiers, and other figures of authority carried a bit of folk humor: a stiff, unsmiling official whose only job was crunching nuts in his mouth poked fun at self-important rulers in a lighthearted, harmless way. That comic reversal helped the soldier design become one of the most recognizable nutcracker styles.