Nativity Coloring Pages
Welcome to my Nativity coloring pages section.
"Nativity" is an old word for birth, and the nativity story is the one Christians tell every Christmas about the night Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The first nativity scene with real animals was set up in an Italian village in 1223 by Saint Francis of Assisi. He brought in a live ox and donkey so people could picture that stable, and families still set up little nativity scenes on mantels and under Christmas trees today.
Jump to: The Christmas Story | Vocabulary Words | Bible Verses | Stained Glass | Victorian Illustrations | More Nativity
The Story of the First Christmas
Mary lived in a little town called Nazareth. One day an angel named Gabriel came to visit her with some very surprising news. She was going to have a baby boy, and she was to name him Jesus.
Mary was going to marry Joseph, a carpenter who spent his days building things out of wood. An angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him about the baby, and Joseph promised to take care of Mary and Jesus.
Just before the baby was due, the emperor of Rome decided to count everyone, and each family had to go back to its hometown to be counted. Joseph's family came from Bethlehem, so off they went on a trip of several days. The story doesn't actually mention a donkey, but nearly every nativity scene gives Mary one to ride, and her feet were probably glad of it.
Bethlehem was a small town on a hill, and its name means "house of bread." With so many families arriving to be counted, the town was packed full by the time Mary and Joseph got there.
Joseph knocked on the door of the inn, but every room was already taken. The innkeeper had one idea left, which was the stable out back where the animals slept. It wasn't fancy, but it was dry and out of the wind.
A stable is a barn for animals, and the manger inside was the wooden box their hay went in. The story never says which animals were there that night. People have pictured a donkey and a cow with a few sheep keeping watch for hundreds of years, though, so here they are.
That night, baby Jesus was born. Mary wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth, the way babies were bundled up back then, and laid him in the manger on a soft bed of hay. A feeding box made a surprisingly good crib.
The animals had to share their hay, but they didn't seem to mind. To a curious little lamb, a baby asleep in the hay box was the most interesting thing that had ever happened in that barn.
Mary held her new baby close. The story says she kept every moment of that night tucked away in her heart, the way mothers still remember the first time they held each of their babies.
Joseph stayed close by, keeping watch over Mary and the baby. Families still set out little figures of the three of them every Christmas, with the manger right in the middle.
Out in the hills nearby, some shepherds were watching their sheep through the night when an angel appeared in the sky. The shepherds were terrified, but the angel told them not to be afraid. A baby had been born in Bethlehem, and they would find him lying in a manger. Then the whole sky filled with angels singing.
The shepherds decided to go and see for themselves. Nobody says whether they brought any sheep along, but it's hard to imagine leaving a little lamb behind on a night like that.
They found the baby in the manger, just as the angel had said. Afterwards the shepherds went back to their fields telling everyone they met about what they'd seen.
Far away in the east, some wise men who studied the night sky spotted a bright new star. They believed it meant a new king had been born, so they packed up and followed it on camels across the desert. The story never says there were three of them. People guessed three because of the three gifts they brought.
When they finally found Jesus, the wise men knelt down and gave him their gifts. One brought gold, and the others brought frankincense and myrrh, which are sweet-smelling tree resins people burned or used as perfume. Many families say that's where the tradition of Christmas presents comes from.
Nativity Vocabulary Words
Some of the words in the Christmas story are older than they look. Manger comes from the French word for "to eat," which suits a wooden box the animals ate their hay from. The wise men are called magi in the Bible's original Greek, and that's the same old word that gave us "magic." Each picture comes with its word and without.
Nativity Coloring Pages with Bible Verses
Only two books of the Bible tell the Christmas story. Luke has the angels and the shepherds, and Matthew has the wise men and their star. The verses here come from the King James Bible, an English translation finished in 1611, which is why it says "thou" and "unto." Each picture comes with the verse and without words.
Stained Glass Nativity
Long before most people could read, churches told Bible stories with pictures made of colored glass. When the sun shone through, the whole nativity lit up on the wall for everyone to follow. The thick black lines in a stained glass window are strips of lead holding each piece of glass in place, which is why every patch is its own color.
Victorian Christmas Card Nativity
The very first Christmas card was sent in England in 1843. By the 1880s, posting cards to friends had become a Christmas habit all over Britain, and card artists drew rosy-cheeked children with curls and flower crowns. They drew almost everyone that way, so even Mary often looks like a little girl in Victorian nativity scenes. They tucked in snow, holly and fir trees too, which makes Bethlehem look a lot like an English village on Christmas Eve.
Don't let the lace collar on the drummer fool you. Victorian boys usually wore dresses and long curls until they were five or six, so he's dressed just the way a little drummer boy would have been on Victorian Christmas cards.
More Nativity Coloring Pages
It's night in Bethlehem, and the only light in the stable comes from one lantern. Everything it touches turns a warm golden yellow, from the rough wooden beams to the straw on the floor. Out in the corners where the light doesn't reach, the shadows are soft browns and greys.
Mary wears a blue robe over a brown dress, and baby Jesus is wrapped in a cream-colored blanket. Joseph stands beside them in olive and tan, the colors of someone who's been travelling for days. The shepherds have come straight from the hills in plain greens and greys, with sheep that are fluffy and white apart from a little mud around the hooves.
Above the roof the sky is a deep midnight blue, and the star is bright enough to send yellow and white rays right across it. The wise men are on their way, dressed in purple and royal blue with flashes of gold. Even their camels are dressed up for the trip.
Nativity crafts and printables