Are you looking for a fun and festive activity to keep the kids entertained this holiday season? These printable Christmas puppets are super easy to make with the free printable templates! Just print, color, and cut the Christmas hand puppets for a fun craft for kids!
Every year, as December rolls in and the holiday music starts playing, I love setting aside time to do crafts with my kids. Some years we’ve gone big, like attempting to make a gingerbread house that inevitably turns into a leaning tower of candy chaos. Other years, we’ve stuck to simpler crafts like these 3D paper cone Christmas trees or printable Christmas door hangers.
But since we had recently made these adorable hand puppets for Halloween and my kids LOVED them, then I decided to recycle the paper craft idea for Christmas!
Whether your kids want to create a Rudolph puppet to help Santa with his reindeer duties or a snowman puppet that won’t melt away come Spring, they’ll love these free printable Christmas craft templates! And the best part – these cute Christmas hand puppets use supplies that you already have on hand and they’re pretty much mess-free!
Here’s how to make this fun Christmas craft with your family:
Supplies Needed
- white card stock – to make the puppets more durable
- crayons, markers, or colored pencils
- scissors
- glue stick or tape
- free printable Christmas hand puppet templates (available below!)
- Optional: Googly eyes, pom-poms, glitter, and craft gems for extra flair
How to Make Christmas Hand Puppets with the Free Printable Templates
Step 1: Print and color the Christmas puppet characters.
First, print the hand puppets of your choice on white card stock for a sturdy puppet. I printed my puppets on 65 pound card stock, because I find that it goes through my home printer nicely without causing any paper jams.
Then, let your kids’ creativity shine! Use crayons, markers, or colored pencils to add personality to each puppet. You can even use white school glue and loose glitter to add fun sparkly accents to the puppets like we did.
Step 2: Cut out the puppet pieces.
Carefully cut out the puppets around the outer line. This step is great for hand-eye coordination and scissor practice, but for younger kids, you may need to help. Don’t forget to cut out the two long rectangular pieces on the sides – these are the handles to make your puppet mouth open and close.
Step 3: Fold the Christmas puppets and attach the handles.
Next it’s time to assemble your cute Christmas crafts! First, fold the hand puppets along the three lines. There are two solid lines that should be folded to the back first – these will make the puppet’s face and chin. Then fold along the center dotted line in the mouth.
The folded Christmas puppets should look like this:
Then attach the handles to the back side, top and bottom. The rectangular pieces on the craft template are for you to insert your fingers and thumb into to make the puppet’s mouth open and close.
I found it easiest to fold the handles on the dotted line first, and then use a glue stick to add glue to the small square ends. You can also use a small piece of tape to keep the handles in place. Here’s what the handles should look like:
Step 4: Add glitter or other embellishments to your puppets.
This step is totally optional, but to make your Christmas puppets even more jolly you can add glitter, sequins, googly eyes, small pom poms, or other glitzy accents. For our elf puppet, we added a line of white school glue and sprinkled it with gold loose glitter like this:
And for the Santa Claus hand puppet, we simply glued a small cotton ball on to the Santa hat. Such a cute way to dress up the puppet crafts and extend this fun project!
Free Printable Christmas Puppets
Want to grab the free printable Christmas puppets to make with your kids? Just click the link down below to download the templates!
The Christmas hand puppets PDF comes with 8 different holiday characters for your kids to choose from including:
- Santa Claus
- Snowman
- Gingerbread man
- Nutcracker
- Penguin
- Elf with striped hat
- Girl elf
- Reindeer
Click HERE to Download the Free Printable Christmas Puppets!
Other Christmas Crafts for Kids
If you loved these Christmas crafts for kids, then be sure to check out some of my other fun craft ideas:
- Free Printable Christmas Coloring Bookmarks
- 3D Paper Cone Christmas Trees to Color
- DIY Christmas Activities Advent Calendar
- Free Printable Santa Stop Here Door Hangers
And don’t forget to PIN this post for later. This is a GREAT way to support my business so that I can continue to create free resources for my readers!
