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Christmas Bible stories for kids, from the angel's visit to the wise men

The Christmas story as Luke and Matthew tell it, one scene a night. An angel arrives in Nazareth and his very first word is rejoice. A baby is wrapped in strips of cloth and laid in an animals' feeding trough because the little town is full. Shepherds who are awake on purpose, keeping watch, see the dark field fill with light. A man named Simeon holds the baby the Holy Spirit promised he would see, a very old prophetess named Anna gives thanks, and travelers from the east follow a star until it stops over one house.

They are told in order and meant to be heard that way, each one picking up where the last left off. The Angel Gabriel Visits Mary ends with Mary hurrying off to see Elizabeth and the birth saved for another night. The Birth of Jesus ends with shepherds in a field nearby, about to get the surprise of their lives. Simeon and Anna begins a few weeks later. Played across the evenings before Christmas, they make a small Advent of their own.

They run from about four minutes to six and a half, and all are told for ages 3 to 8. The Birth of Jesus and The Shepherds and the Angels are calm enough for a three-year-old. The Wise Men Follow the Star is the longest, and the only one with someone in it who means harm.

5 stories, each free to preview

Every story in this collection

The Angel Gabriel Visits Mary illustrated Bible story for kids

The Angel Gabriel Visits Mary

God sends the angel Gabriel past every palace and king to one young woman in the small town of Nazareth. His news is so big that Mary has a question of her own, and her answer changes everything.

Luke 1:26-39, 4 min, ages 3-8

The Birth of Jesus illustrated Bible story for kids

The Birth of Jesus

Mary's baby is coming very soon when an emperor far away in Rome orders everyone counted, and she and Joseph must walk all the way to Bethlehem. When they finally arrive, the little town is full, and the night is about to bring the baby the angel promised.

Luke 2:1-7 (with Matthew 1:23), 5 min, ages 3-8

The Shepherds and the Angels illustrated Bible story for kids

The Shepherds and the Angels

On a quiet night outside Bethlehem, a few shepherds stay awake so their sheep can sleep safe. Then a light brighter than morning fills their field, and they hear news too good to keep to themselves.

Luke 2:8-20, 5 min, ages 3-8

Simeon and Anna illustrated Bible story for kids

Simeon and Anna

Mary and Joseph carry their few-weeks-old baby up to the busy temple in Jerusalem, with a small gift of two birds. Somewhere in that crowd, a man named Simeon has been waiting for a promise God made him.

Luke 2:22-40, 4 min, ages 3-8

The Wise Men Follow the Star illustrated Bible story for kids

The Wise Men Follow the Star

Far away in the east, some wise men who know the night sky by heart see a star they have never seen before. They pack their treasures and set out to find a King, but a jealous king in Jerusalem wants to find him too.

Matthew 2:1-12, 6 min, ages 3-8

How to use these at home

These keep to what the Bible actually says, which is less than the nativity play. Luke never mentions a stable, only a manger, and our telling says plainly that we do not know exactly where Mary and Joseph stayed. The donkey is a maybe. Nobody counts the wise men, and they find the young child with his mother in a house, some time after the night of the shepherds. If your child's nativity has three kings and a donkey at the crib there is no need to correct it. These give you the simpler, stranger version underneath.

The Shepherds and the Angels hands children one concrete thing to hold on to. The sign the angel gives is not a palace or a crown but a baby lying in the animals' food box. Ask your child where they would go looking for a king, then ask where the angel told the shepherds to look. It is the whole point of Christmas in a question a four-year-old can answer.

Read the parent note on The Wise Men Follow the Star before you play it. Herod says he wants to come and worship the child, and the story says gently that he did not want another king at all, which can lead a curious child to ask what he meant to do. The telling stops with God warning the wise men in a dream and sending them home another way, and leaves out the harder part of Matthew 2, so you can too.

Each story page carries a memory verse from the World English Bible, discussion questions and a short prayer, which makes the set easy to use for an Advent calendar, a Sunday school group or a reading on Christmas Eve. Every one has its full text published here and a free audio preview, and The Birth of Jesus is one of the free stories in the Bible Wonders app, so the whole narration costs nothing there.

Common questions

Which order should we listen to the Christmas stories in?
The order on this page: the angel's visit to Mary, the birth, the shepherds, Simeon and Anna in the temple, then the wise men. Luke tells the first four in that order, and Matthew's wise men arrive later still, when Jesus is called a young child and the family is living in a house. If you only have one night, The Birth of Jesus works on its own.
Was Jesus born in a stable?
The Bible never says so. Luke says Mary laid him in a manger, an animals' feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn, and that is why people picture animals around him. Our telling keeps to that: a cow shuffling in the straw is something to imagine rather than something the Bible tells us.
How many wise men were there?
Matthew does not say. He lists their gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh, and the number of gifts is probably where the three kings of the carols come from. He does not call them kings either, and he says they found the young child with Mary in a house, so they were never at the manger with the shepherds.
Are these Christmas stories suitable for a three-year-old?
Most of them. The Birth of Jesus and The Shepherds and the Angels are on our list for three-year-olds; the shepherds are frightened by the light for a moment, and the angel's first words are don't be afraid. The Angel Gabriel Visits Mary and Simeon and Anna are gentle too, but carry ideas a four or five-year-old gets more from. The Wise Men Follow the Star is the one to check first, because of King Herod.
What happens after the Christmas stories?
Jesus grows up. The rest of his stories here follow him as a man: baptized in the Jordan, at a wedding in Cana, calming a storm on the Sea of Galilee, feeding a whole hillside from one boy's loaves and fish, walking on the water, blessing the children and stopping under Zacchaeus's tree, along with the stories he told about the Good Samaritan, the lost sheep and the prodigal son, and on to Easter, from the palm branches to the empty tomb. You will find them all in order under Jesus, in the Characters section of the site menu.

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