My kids and I like to play card games at home for fun. It’s always a good time playing Go Fish, Old Maid, and War with my two boys. As we were playing together today, we were talking about Christmas. I just love Christmas and everything about this time of year. I thought it would be fun to have Christmas playing cards that weren’t all about Santa and the worldly view of this special time of year. Why couldn’t we make our own Christmas playing cards to play with? We first came up with Jesus being the Ace…but then we remembered that Jesus is the King of Kings, so we put God as the Ace (He is the THE most powerful, as my 6 year old says), and Jesus and the King. Mary is the queen while we put Joseph as the Jack. After that we chose the angel, shepherd, wise men with their gifts, animals, and the Bethlehem Star to round out the bunch.
- Click on the preview above to download the PDF printable
I thought we could also change a few usual card games to make them work with our new set of Christmas playing cards.
Then: Go Fish Now: Go Search (like the shepherds & wise men searched for Jesus)
** Play like usual, you just say “Go Search”
Then: Old Maid Now: Baby Jesus
** Play like usual, just take out 3 of the Jesus cards leaving one as the “Winner”!
Then: War Now: Peace (you know…Peace on Earth…)
** Play like usual you are trying to make peace, not war.
We made the cards in red and black so if you want a full deck, you just have to print out two sets of each. I have made a back for the cards if you want to use it. You could just attach your cards to construction paper and it would help hide the face of the card. I am going to print mine out, laminate the face and the back together (back to back), and cut them out. I’ve heard that a soap container (you know, the one for traveling with a bar of soap) is a great container for playing cards, but I’ve never tried it. I’ll probably put mine in a Ziplock bag for safe keeping.
These would be a great activity to have on hand for Sunday School or Jr. Church if you have an extra 5-10 minutes. It’s easy to get out and have the kids play. I hope you and your kids have as much fun with these as I think my kids and I will have this December.
The printable Christmas cards was GREAT! But when I tried to give it 5 star as I felt it deserved, I accidentally touched the first star and it saved it before I could touch the others- I guess you start by touching the fifth star? Anyway ????????????
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll get it fixed right now and thank you for the encouragement!