Free Christmas Plays for Children "The Birth of Jesus"

Here is a simple kids Christmas skit for church. You can download, print, and use with your children’s choir. Like all our resources this is 100% free for you to use in your children’s ministry. This pageant is written directly from the Bible, only adding songs and direction for the actors. There are no speaking parts for the actors, only a narrator. The narration is indicated by being in italics. Please leave a comment below with any suggestions or to let us know how you used our Christmas play in your church. You can also check out our other free Christmas plays.

Free Christmas script

Ages: This pageant has been used with a preschool ages 1-5 year olds as well as a children’s church ages 2 – 5th grade.

Costumes: These can be as simple or as extravagant as you want them to be. We have used large t-shirts for all of the children (in different colors) when we were on a very little budget. The first year, we didn’t even have a budget, so we asked all of the parents to donate a large t-shirt (they were more than happy to do that). We have also bought cheap white flat sheets, had the children watercolor on them and then cut them up for all of the head dresses. Yarn can be braided to make belts, cardboard can be cut and painted for wings, tree glitter garland can be used to make halos and Burger King still has crowns! Be creative and have the children help make their costumes!

Props: Just like the costumes, can be as simple or as extravagant as you want them to be. We have used large cardboard boxes and sheets to cover up the equipments on the stage with a simple “Bethlehem” sign. Don’t forget Baby Jesus.

Songs: We used a the Cedarmount Kids CD with children’s voices, but you can use any music that fits your congregation. We gave the Sunday School teachers a CD with the just the songs that the children will be singing so that they could practice. We played the CD with the children’s voices with our children singing. We have done this with 60 1-5 year olds and 30 2 year old-5th graders and we could ALWAYS hear our children over the CD. It just helped our children feel more confident in their singing if we played the CD with the voices. Don’t worry about not being able to hear your children.

Narration: We opted to have a person in the balcony with a microphone, over pre-taping the narration. This way, she could watch the children and make sure that they were in their places before she went on. This also gave something for the children to look at when they got nervous.

Direction: Someone stood beside the Narrator to help remind the children where they were to go. We also had helpers on both sides of the church to help the children down the aisles.

Practices: Since we gave the CD to the Sunday School teachers for the children to practice the singing during class on Sundays, we didn’t need to practice much. We gave the narrator their parts about a month early so that they were comfortable with them and we had the children (who had individual moving parts) practice during class. This helped us only need 1 dress rehearsal on a Saturday morning for 2 hours. We were able to run through the pageant 2 times and then have Happy Birthday, Jesus party to celebrate afterwards!

Just remember, the parents are looking at their child and how great they are up on stage! Our goal is to share the Good News of Jesus’ Birth with others!

Narrator
Mary
Joseph
Main Angel
Angels (usually all of the little girls)
Shepherds (usually all of the little boys)
Sheep (optional – depending on if you have enough children)
Wisemen (they need gifts)
Stars (usually the littlest of your children)
Star Holder (this person holds up a star and leads the wisemen in)
Registrar (optional – this part was added because there was a childwho needed a part)
Innkeeper (optional – this part was added because there was a child who needed a part)

Christmas Play Script

** As the parents are entering, play a Christmas CD for background music.

CHILDREN’S MINISTER WELCOMES THE PARENTS AND STARTS WITH AN OPENING PRAYER

“Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” will be playing in the background.

Registrar will walk to stage rightInnkeeper will walk to stage left

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And everyone went to his own town to register.

Joseph and Mary walk on stage to the Registrar

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

Joseph and Mary walk across the stage to the Innkeeper

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Innkeeper shakes head “no”

Joseph and Mary walk to center stage, sit in chairs and pull out baby Jesus from underneath one of the chairs.

“It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” will be playing in the background.?Main Angel will come in and stand stage leftShepherds (and sheep) come in and stand (kneel) in front of angel

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

All children on stage will sing “Away in a Manger”

“Hark the Herald Angels Sing” will be playing in the background.

Angels will come in and stand with the Main Angel

Suddenly a great company of heavenly hosts appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

Shepherds go see Jesus

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

All on stage will sing “Joy to the World”

Angels, Registrar and Innkeeper will sit downKing will go where the Angels were

“We Three Kings” will be playing in the background

Wisemen and Star Holder will go to see the King

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born the king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” Jesus was a king for all people and one day every knee will bow before him.

Stars come in and stand in front

All on stage will sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”

Stars will sit down on stageStar holder will walk over and hold the star over Mary and JosephWisemen will walk slowly over to Mary and Joseph

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

Wisemen bow down to baby Jesus and give their gifts

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” which means,…

“God with us.” (all children will say with narrator)

New Sunday School Curriculum: Our Bible lessons are designed to keep the kids’ attention and show how God's Word makes a difference. Every series is flexible enough for a wide-age group and affordable enough for small churches. Download a free Bible lesson in pdf or view our latest Sunday School curriculum for small churches.

Categories Christmas Sunday School Lessons for Kids

17 thoughts on “Free Christmas Plays for Children "The Birth of Jesus"”

Sandra Taylor

Thanks for this simple play. Its just what I was looking for. We have a very small church with only a handful of children, but this should still work. I wish there was a mention of where to get the CD with the childrens voices? Again, thanks

JD Mnerella

Thank you for this. This is perfect for us as well. I was wondering if there was a video anywhere of a group doing this particular play. It would be interesting to see what it would look like being performed. Thanks again!

Tony Kummer

That’s a great question. I’d like to see that also, I know many many churches are using this script. It would be a wonderful help to all.

L. Valentine

We used parts of this play in our Children’s Christmas Pageant. It works really well with the younger children (non-readers). This website is a great resource. Thank you for sharing. May God bless you.

Thank you for this play. It was perfect for our Wednesday Bible Study youth who do not attend Sunday Service and many who have not attend church every. The children and audience absolutely loved it. We added a praise dance, “Away in the Manager”. They dressed in full costume. The children were are so inspired and want to do another play We recorder the performance and had a showing with cookies and hot chocolate the following Wednesday after touring location Christmas light. This was a blessing. Thank you

GAYLE BRECKE

Thank you for this adorable play. Our children loved it. We only have a few children that participated (8 children) and one middle schooler as the narrator. We had multiple characters. Innkeeper became a shepherd and then a wiseman. The three shepherds became wisemen; the main angel became King Herod; and another angel became the star holder. The congregation sang the first verse of all the hymns while the children changed costumes. We did the program with a director/prop mover, pianist, and three parent (angels, shepherds, wisemen & Herod). The children loved acting out the parts. Thanks again.

Tony Kummer

Wonderful report thanks for using this Christmas play in your church – it’s encouraging to hear how it worked out. Merry Christmas!

This is the perfect play for the last min, We did this play the year before Covid and had costumes for everyone, thats what really made it nice. But we forgot one thing: We forgot to put Jesus under the seat LOL !! So there was no Jesus , I wraped a blanket around a hymnal and tried to sneak it to Mary and Joseph. LOL !! We’re gonna try and do it right this year. I don’t know how we can get the singing done because everybody is wearing mask. I know where’s a will , there’s a way.

I loved doing this play. I shared a comment above about forgetting Baby Jesus. Is there another way other than Mary pulling him out from underneath the chair because the augience will see it. What we did was have the angels stand in form of them and sing while pretending like the baby was being born and then they walk away at the end of the song but like I said we forgot to put him there. LOL .

Roberta Collins

thank you for the lovely stories I can use with my children. I have unusual circumstances in that my audience is basically Hindi who want to know the Christmas story….who better to tell it than children.

Thank you so much for this wonderfully, simple play. It is perfect for our small YFF group. We will use the older children as narrators, assign songs for simple, piano performances by children, a violin solo, duets and trios as well as group singing. We used just the first verse of a number of Christmas Carols. Anyone who wants to sing show their talent will be welcome to do so. I am certain it will be an extremely original and fun performance.

Elsie Livingston

Excited to have found this website. will definitely look forward to future uses at our small, but growing membership of all ages. Thanks again.

Lawrence Mwale Thank you so much, you made my research easier R. Randolph Thank you so much. Sarah Gamboa

This play was a blessing to find when we realized that we didn’t have 10 kids who would commit to speaking roles in the play we originally planned to perform. One thing I’d mention is that there is also a role for “King” that comes up in the play, but it is not listed in the Characters List at the beginning of the document.

Sarah Gamboa

For those who want to see how the play could be performed, here is what our church did this year(the intro to the play starts at about 19:30): https://fb.watch/puoebfX2Nh/ We did not have an innkeeper, registrar or a king (one of our wise men got sick the night before, so there were only 2 for the performance). Our sheep/stars were all the 2-3 yr olds and any older kids who preferred that role, we used 2 adults as shepherds to keep them corralled 🙂 no other kids wanted to be shepherds, though they had the choice. The angels are the 4 yr and older kids who didn’t want a more prominent role. I got all positive feedback from the congregation, though from a directing standpoint, I noticed a few things that I wished had gone better: like, somehow, the “Away in a Manger” song I’d sent to the Media team from youtube wasn’t the version we’d practiced(nor was it very musical, but it worked, in spite of the akward pauses). Also, our narrator hadn’t made it to practice and although I had written in his script to pause until the angels are back in the risers & the star begins to move – he began reading immediately. If we do the play again I would certainly make sure to emphasize the timing, so the narrator knows when to pause and when to read on.

Jessica Morneault

Here is our version. We have added a little to it, and included the congregation in some of the worship. At the end the kids sang we wish you a Merry Christmas but the sound wasn’t working on that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8isTHjla56k