How to Tell the Christmas Story to Kids, Age by Age

Summary

Tell children the Christmas story by reading it to them from the Bible, starting with Luke 2.
For two- and three-year-olds, a few verses are enough: Luke 2:7, where Mary “laid him in a manger”, and the angel’s good news in Luke 2:10–12.
From about four to seven, read all of Luke 2:1–20, and read the wise men in Matthew 2:1–12 as Epiphany comes near on 6 January. The ages are rough; go by your child.
Children from eight to twelve can read Luke 1–2 and Matthew 1–2 aloud themselves, and teenagers can read John 1:1–14 beside the story.
Herod wanted to hurt Jesus because the wise men were seeking a child “born King of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2), and God kept Jesus safe by sending the family to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–14).
Saint Nicholas was a real fourth-century bishop of Myra; if your child believes in Santa now, keep that story apart from the true story of Jesus.

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Read the story to them straight from the Bible, starting with Luke 2. For a toddler a few verses are enough: the baby laid in a manger and the angel’s good news to the shepherds. As children grow, read more of Luke and Matthew, let them handle the figures of a nativity set, and answer their questions truthfully.

Children will ask. The Bible expects them to. When Moses taught Israel to keep the Passover, he told the parents what their children would ask: “when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s passover” (Exodus 12:26–27). Christmas sets the same question before our children. Why is there a baby in that little manger on the shelf? Our part is to answer from the Gospel, in words they can understand, as they grow. “We will not hide them from their children,” the psalmist says, “shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD” (Psalm 78:4).

What should you read to children at Christmas, age by age?

In the Christmas story God comes to us as a little child. The sign the angel gave the shepherds was a baby: “Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). So begin where the angel began, with the baby. The ages below are rough; go by your child.

Rough age	What to read	How
2 to 3	Luke 2:7 and 2:10–12	A few verses, the same ones each night, with the baby figure in their hands
4 to 7	Luke 2:1–20; Matthew 2:1–12 near Epiphany	The whole of Luke’s night, and the wise men when their figures join the nativity scene
8 to 12	Luke 1:26–38; Matthew 1:18–25; Matthew 2	They read aloud, and you follow the story from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Egypt
Teens	John 1:1–14; Isaiah 9:6; Philippians 2:5–8	Read the meaning beside the story, and welcome their questions

The youngest, about two and three

Read a verse or two: “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Then give them the angel’s words: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10–11). Name the people: Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the shepherds. Leave the census and the inn for later; the baby, his mother and the good news are the story at this age.

From four to seven

Now read the whole of Luke 2:1–20 in one sitting. It moves quickly: the journey to Bethlehem, the birth, the angels in the night, the shepherds who “came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger” (Luke 2:16).

Save the wise men for later in the season. Matthew tells their story in a different chapter, and the nativity set can keep them waiting until Epiphany comes near on 6 January. Pope Francis described that custom in his 2019 letter on the nativity scene: “As the feast of Epiphany approaches, we place the statues of the Three Kings in the Christmas crèche.” Read Matthew 2:1–12 when they arrive, and let your child walk them across the room to the manger.

From eight to twelve

Hand them the Bible and let them read. Begin with the angel and Mary in Nazareth (Luke 1:26–38), then Joseph’s dream (Matthew 1:18–25), then the birth and the shepherds, then all of Matthew 2: the star, the gifts, Herod and the escape into Egypt. This is the age to come back to the inn. “Inn” is the King James word, but Luke’s word, kataluma, is the one he uses for the guest chamber of the Last Supper (Luke 22:11), and many scholars read it as the guest room of a house that was already full. A manger is the trough the animals ate from, and Luke mentions no stable. If they notice that Luke and Matthew tell different parts of the story, they are right. Luke follows Mary and the shepherds; Matthew follows Joseph and the wise men. The full order of events, with every reference, is set out in where the Christmas story is in the Bible.

Teenagers

Give them the Gospel that has no manger in it. John begins before time: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and fourteen verses later, “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). Ask them what it means that the baby in the manger is the Word who made the world. Isaiah saw him coming centuries before: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). A newborn is called the mighty God. Paul writes of Christ who “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). Teenagers may doubt it, ask whether it happened, or ask why the date is 25 December. For that last question there is the early Church’s own answer, in why Christmas is on 25 December. Welcome the questions. Peter told the first Christians to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15), and our own children are often the first to ask.

How do you answer the hard questions?

Three questions are hard to answer at a child’s level. Here is a short, true answer to each, one that leaves room for a fuller answer next year.

Why did King Herod want to hurt the baby?

Matthew gives the reason. The wise men came to Jerusalem asking, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?”, and when Herod the king heard it, “he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him” (Matthew 2:2–3). Herod was already king, and he saw the child as a threat; the angel warned Joseph that “Herod will seek the young child to destroy him” (Matthew 2:13). For a small child, tell it this way. A cruel king wanted to hurt Jesus. God warned Joseph in a dream, and Joseph “took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt” (Matthew 2:14), where they were safe. That is true, and it is enough.

An older child will reach verse 16. When the wise men did not come back, Herod “was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under” (Matthew 2:16). Tell them what it says. Then show them that Matthew does not hurry past those families. He stops to hear their mothers in Jeremiah’s words: “Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not” (Matthew 2:18).

How could Mary have a baby without a husband?

Mary asked this first. “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” she said to the angel, and he answered, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:34–35). For a young child, say it simply: Jesus’ father is God, and God gave Jesus to Mary. Joseph took Mary as his wife and kept them both safe. An older child can be told that Matthew says the same thing from Joseph’s side (Matthew 1:18–20), and that the angel’s last word to Mary answers every child who says it could not happen: “For with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

Is Santa real?

If your child asks whether Santa is real, start with what is true. There was a real Nicholas, a bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the fourth century, and the Church still keeps his feast on 6 December. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands he became the secret bringer of children’s presents on that day, and in the United States he became Santa Claus, who brings them on Christmas Eve. Almost everything else told of him is legend, as the history of Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus shows. Families answer the Santa question in different ways. However yours answers it, keep the two stories apart, and tell your child that the story of Jesus is true and comes from the Bible, so that when they learn the truth about Santa, they still know that Jesus was born.

How can a nativity set help you tell the story?

A nativity set turns the story into something a child can touch. The custom goes back to Francis of Assisi, who at Christmas in 1223, in the Italian town of Greccio, wanted to see with his own eyes “how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he was laid upon a bed of hay”. Luke does not mention the ox and the ass. Christians found them in Isaiah: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib” (Isaiah 1:3). A crib is a manger. The ass knows the manger where it is fed, and so Christians have set the two animals beside the manger where the Lord himself lay, and at Greccio Francis gave them their place there. Pope Francis, writing from Greccio in 2019, called the nativity scene “part of the precious yet demanding process of passing on the faith,” and said it teaches us “beginning in childhood” to contemplate Jesus.

Let children set the figures out, move them, and tell you who each one is. A child who names the figures is telling the story back to you. On Christmas Eve, open Luke 2 and let the youngest lay the baby in the manger while you read verse 7. A grandparent can do the same, for Moses told Israel to teach what they had seen to “thy sons, and thy sons’ sons” (Deuteronomy 4:9).

At our own table, with a Bible open and a small figure in a child’s hand, we still do what the shepherds did. “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass,” they said to one another (Luke 2:15), and they went, and afterwards they spread the word. Not every question will be answered in one December, and not every answer will be understood. Even Mary, who was there, kept turning it over: “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).