I absolutely love the Christmas season! The lights, the Christmas tree, so many opportunities to gather with loved ones, of course all the sweets, and all the awesome Christmas music! And, of course, this Printable Primary Christmas Songbook!
We have a tradition in our family of gathering together with friends and family and acting out the Savior’s birth with a fun skit. I really wanted something that would incorporate our other tradition, singing Christmas carols, so I created my own skit that I have available as a free printable on my parenting blog.
Make sure you head over to grab The Savior’s Birth – A Nativity Skit! I think your family will love it! And to go along with that tradition, I also re-created a Christmas Sing-Along songbook that my family used growing up!
Now, having served as a Primary Music Leader, I knew I wanted a songbook especially made for the Primary kids, too! What a wonderful and fun way to share the beautiful Christmas songs from the Children’s Songbook than with a printable songbook for the kids!
Thus, the idea was born to expand on my Christmas carols songbook, and make one specially designed for our beloved Primary songs!
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Primary Christmas Songbook Printable
The goal for the Primary Christmas songbook was to include the most beloved songs many of the kids already know and the less-known ones as well to expose them to many of the other fun songs of the season.
But, I also wanted to created it as a keepsake book they could treasure and love! So, the book is created with a half page for most songs and aligned just right to print, fold, and staple to create a bound booklet songbook!
Song List of the
Primary Christmas Songbook
Included within the Primary Christmas Songbook are almost all of the Christmas songs within the Children’s songbook. Here’s the list, in order of appearance:
- Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus
- Away in a Manger
- Christmas Bells
- The Shepherd’s Carol
- Once within a Lowly Stable
- Sleep, Little Jesus
- There Was Starlight on the Hillside
- Picture a Christmas
- Mary’s Lullaby
- The Nativity Song
- Who Is the Child?
- Oh, Hush Thee, My Baby
- When Joseph Went to Bethlehem
- Little Jesus
- Have a Very merry Christmas!
Children’s Christmas Coloring Songbook
Another element that I really wanted to include was a way for the book to be interactive and get the kids excited and engaged with learning and trying out new songs. To accomplish this, I added a fun section on the back page I called “Sing & Color.”
The idea is that the kids will sing and listen along with the songs and then color in one of the nativity scene characters as they find a relevant songs!
Included shapes are:
- Baby Jesus
- Manger
- Shepherd’s Hook
- Star
- Donkey
- Angel
The kids can color one image per song. You can use this to have the Primary kids help you select 6 different songs to sing during Primary one Sunday.
You could have them hunt through the book for a song that might match one of the symbols, and then sing, and finally color the matching icon.
I’ll list my recommended symbol per song here, but for some songs multiple symbols will be a match! Using this guide, you’ll spread out the symbols – as they all match Baby Jesus (for example).
- Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus – Angel
- Away in a Manger – Donkey
- Christmas Bells – Baby Jesus
- The Shepherd’s Carol – Baby Jesus
- Once within a Lowly Stable – Manger
- Sleep, Little Jesus – Star
- There Was Starlight on the Hillside – Star
- Picture a Christmas – Manger
- Mary’s Lullaby – Star
- The Nativity Song – Angel
- Who Is the Child? – Shepherd’s Hook
- Oh, Hush Thee, My Baby – Shepherd’s Hook
- When Joseph Went to Bethlehem – Donkey
- Little Jesus – Angel
- Have a Very merry Christmas! – Baby Jesus
Cover for the Christmas Songbook!
The last detail to finalize, was what to put on the front and back cover. I loved some of the coloring page art I was able to find available in the Gospel Media Library. We’ve utilized those to also make the front and back perfect for kids!
They will be able to color in the nativity scene on the front cover as well as a pretty bell and garland arch. The back cover features a family reading together around a Christmas tree that’s ready to be colored in. I know the kids will LOVE decorating the tree here with their own colors and patterns!
And one final detail was adding this quote, that I just love, by President Monson to the back cover.
“And when we find him, will we be prepared as were the wise men of old to provide gifts from our many treasures? They presented gold, frankincense and myrrh. These are not the gifts Jesus asks of us. From the treasure of our hearts Jesus asks that we give of ourselves: ‘Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind’ (D&C 64:34).”
Thomas S. Monson
Creating a Christmas
Songbook for Primary
To use a copy of our free printable Primary Christmas Songbook, you’ll first just download the file (available below). It will open up in a new tab so make sure you don’t have any pop-up blockers to keep that page from opening.
The file will open in a PDF viewer in your browser. You can either save or print the file right from there. It’s available for free for your own personal and church use. But please do not distribute the file. You can share the printed songbooks, just not the specific file.
If you want to share this resource – just share the link! That helps protect our copyright and gives everyone all the pertinent details I’ve shared above for how to print, use, and get the most out of this Primary songbook for Christmas!
Important Printer Settings:
Now, it’s time to print! To do this with the PDF file, you’ll just hit the Print button and adjust a few settings on the print prompt before printing.
Borderless Printing: If you have any issues with the file “shrinking” down to add an additional margin, you can go to the “Advanced” printer settings option and choose to print with borderless printing. This will allow the file to fill the whole page, with the appropriate margins already set when creating the file.
Print on Both Sides: Most printers have the ability to print on both sides of the paper. If yours has this option, you’ll simply make sure this box is checked. Then, select to flip the paper on the SHORT edge. This ensures all the pages are face up when printed!
Printing Only on 1 Side: If your printer doesn’t have capabilities to print 2-sided, no worries! You’ll simply print all the odd pages first (1, 3, 5, 7, 9). There is a selection you can choose to print odd or even pages that can make this easy, or just type in the pages separated by a comma.
When printed, reload the paper, paying close attention to if the already printed side should face up, or down, and which page should go in first. Some printers print from the last page forward so your pages are already in order and others print from first to last.
Just double check how yours came out and you may need to do a test run to figure out your unique printer’s settings. Then, select print again and this time print all the even pages (2, 4, 6, 8, 10). This will print the correct pages on the back of your first set of printed pages!
Now, just flip through to check all the pages are in order! You’ll just fold in half, bending the front cover around so the two images are now on the front and on the back of your songbook. You can then use a long-neck stapler (I use mine quite a lot!!) to staple the center of the Primary songbook together!
Make sure your stapling with the front cover faced up, so the curved ends of the staples are on the inside of the finished songbook.
Printable Primary Christmas Songbook
Now that you’ve got some fun ideas brewing for how to use this Christmas songbook in your Primary, you can save or print this file right here!
This Primary Christmas Songbook file is 10-pages long and includes 3 coloring pages, lyrics to 15 Primary Christmas songs, an interactive game to play while you sing, and it’s ready to assemble into a keepsake songbook the kids will cherish!
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What other fun ways will you use this Primary Christmas Songbook as part of your Singing Time?
