Homemade kids Christmas crafts and presents add a lovely personal touch to Christmas, and the kids are usually so proud of what they make! If you are looking for some crafts to do with your kids this Christmas, here are 5 Jolly Christmas Crafts for Children, that are suitable for all age groups. 

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These five Christmas crafts projects are easy to organise and easy for kids to tackle, with a little help from parents.

5 Jolly Christmas Crafts for Children

#1. Magic Reindeer Food

This is a lovely, simple craft for younger children. You can make it any time in the days up to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, sprinkle the magic reindeer food outside your house to guide the reindeer and Santa to you…

You will need

• Oats and/or birdseed
• Edible Glitter

If you are making this as a gift for other children, you will also need:

• Small plastic bag
• Paper & pen
• Ribbon or tape (optional)

What to do

1. All you need to do is mix the oats/birdseed with the glitter and put the mixture into a dry container to save until Christmas Eve.
2. If you are making it as a gift, write the following on the piece of paper:

“Sprinkle on the lawn at night
The moon will make it sparkle bright
Santa’s reindeer fly and roam
This will guide them to your home.”

3. Put the paper into the bag, or attach it with the ribbon or tape.
4. On Christmas Eve, sprinkle the magic reindeer food outside your house, and the reindeer and Santa are sure to find you!

(Photo credit: barron via photopin cc)

#2. Rudolph Hand and Feet Decorations

This one is really easy to do with young children too. It’s another favourite Christmas craft of ours, because it is made with your child’s own footprint and handprints.

We’ve made them a few years in a row, and it’s lovely to see the decorations getting bigger over the years!

You will need

• Brown paper (you can use craft paper or just recycle a brown paper bag)
• Pen or pencil
• Googly eyes (available at most craft outlets)
• Red pompom (available at most craft outlets), or glitter.
• Glue
• String
• Tape

What to do

Note: if you are doing this craft with more than one child, make sure to write their names or initials on the reverse side of each handprint and footprint.

1. Trace the child’s footprint on the paper – this will be the reindeer’s head
2. Trace the child’s handprints on the paper (both hands) – these will be the antlers
3. Glue the antlers to the back of the head (at the top)
4. Glue the googly eyes to the face. If you don’t have googly eyes, it’s easy to make them from paper – just cut circles from black paper and glue onto ovals cut from white paper.
5. Glue the nose (red pompom/glitter) with glue. If you don’t have a pompom/glitter, you can make the nose from a circle of red paper, felt, etc.
6. When the glue is dry, loop the string and tape it to the back of the head between the antlers.
7. The reindeer decoration is now ready to hang on the tree.

You might also enjoy reading 15 Super Easy Preschool Christmas Crafts To Make With Your Child

#3. Salt Dough Decorations

These decorations are fun to make as a Christmas craft with children of all ages. They can also be given as little homemade gifts. You can let the children help with making the dough, or just make the dough in advance and let them help with cutting out the shapes and decorating them.

There are three stages to this project

1. making the dough
2. cutting out the shapes and baking them
3. and finally decorating them

so it’s a good project to spread over a couple of days.

Older children could make their own shapes by forming pieces of dough free-hand, and younger ones could simply use cookie cutters in Christmas shapes (stars, trees, snowflakes, snowmen, etc.).

You can make either standing ornaments or decorations to hang on the tree.

This mixture based on 1 cup of flour makes about 20 decorations.

You will need

• 2 parts flour
• 1 part salt
• 1 part water
• Acrylic paint
• Clear gloss varnish
• String or ribbon

What to do

1. Preheat oven to about 100 degrees C.
2. Mix flour, salt and water together to form a dough
3. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it’s springy. This may take a while. You can also use a food processor or a bread maker to make the dough.
4. Leave the dough to settle for about half an hour.
5. Mould pieces of dough into the desired shape, or roll it out and use cookie cutters to cut out the decorations
6. For hanging decorations, use a toothpick to make a hole near the top of the decorations. Make it as big as you need it, depending on whether you plan to hang the decorations on thread, string, ribbon, etc.
7. Place the cut-out decorations onto an ungreased baking tray and place in the oven for three or four hours.
8. When done, remove the shapes from the oven and allow them to cool completely before decorating.
9. Paint the shapes. When the paint is dry, cover them with up to three coats of a clear gloss varnish.
10. When everything is dry, thread the string or ribbon through the hole of each decoration, tie a knot, and it’s ready to hang on the tree!

#4. Cloves in Oranges

This is a very seasonal scented decoration for older children to make as a gift for aunts, grandmothers, etc. They can follow a pattern, or make their own design, and each one made can be unique.

You will need

• A firm orange
• A toothpick
• Whole cloves

What to do

1. Trace out a design on the orange with the toothpick.
2. Push a clove (pointed end inwards) into each hole made by the toothpick in the orange.
3. You can cover the whole orange with cloves, but we prefer to make swirly designs with the cloves – it’s more creative and you use less cloves!
4. You can tie a ribbon around the orange to dress it up, or leave it as is and it will make a lovely fragrant accent when placed on the festive table or sideboard.

You might also enjoy reading Homemade Food Gifts and Homemade Gift Tags

#5. Snowman Decorations

These cute snowman decorations are super easy for children to make. You can cut out the circles in advance to have them ready for them to let their creativity go wild.

You will need

• white cardboard or thick paper
• selection of coloured card or paper e.g. red, yellow, orange, green and black.
• felt tip pens
• scissors
• ribbon and/or thread

What to do

1. Cut circles out of the white card to make the snowman’s body
2. Cut some hat shapes and carrots out of the coloured card. You’ll also need some stick shaped little hands cut out of black card.
3. Cut some pieces of ribbon to form the snowman’s scarf
4. Stick a hat onto the top of each snowman circle.
5. Loop the piece of ribbon and glue it around the snowman’s “neck”
6. Draw eyes and then coloured buttons down his tummy
7. Stick the carrot nose and hands on
8. You can also add a mini Christmas tree to each snowman if you wish.
9. If you plan to hang them on the tree, pierce a small hole at the top of each snowman and thread through a long thread or ribbon and tie it in a knot at the hole leaving a loop to hang it with.

Over to you now. Have you made any of these, or do you have other suggestions for Christmas crafts for children? Share them here in the comments!