I made you a little something! This Biblical advent calendar free printable tells the nativity story, based on the gospels of Matthew and Luke. (Yes, I just combined the two very different tellings of the birth of Jesus to make one story with all the details we know so well.) And my calendar doesn’t end with Jesus being born at the end of the story, because then you lose the Wise Men. Just think of it as a Biblical mash-up. 🙂
Anyway, the point for me was to tell the girls the Christmas story in full, straight from Bible, so that’s what this is. I want them to come to remember all the wonderful statements of faith like, “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” or “they departed to their own country by another way.” (I used the Revised Standard Version.)
Last year, I found these rustic wooden countdown numbers at Linden, half-off after Christmas. My plan is to use each number to tell the nativity story. (And when I get it all together, I’ll share that with you, too. In my mind there is a garland wrapping up my stairs and I have no idea when I’ll have time to pull that off.)
Get Your Biblical Advent Printable
I’m also planning to add a more secular element: a fun, inexpensive and quick holiday activity for each day. I’m thinking painting toenails red and green, watching the Grinch, making homemade cocoa — you get the idea. But that is a project for another day. In the meantime, you can click here to download the PDF.
Get the Labels
These are designed to print on Avery 5294 round labels, which is a 2.5″ diameter circle. (Find the labels online here — they don’t seem to be in stores.) If you’ve never worked with Avery templates before, it’s pretty easy. Just go here, and use the backgrounds and text boxes to create your label. The background I used is from the Martha Stewart collection for Avery. (You can save it as you are working as a .avery file to your computer but you can only open the file at the Avery site.) When you go to print, it automatically creates a PDF, which you can rename, save and print from your computer.
Get the Circle Punch
But of course you can also print this calendar out on standard cardstock if you don’t want to pay for labels. In that case, you’ll want this 2.5″ circle punch to make cutting out the circles easy. Are you creating your own advent calendar this year? I’d love to see photos: leave me a link in the comments below.
These are wonderful. You can enlarge them and glue them to mason jar lids or make them a bit smaller and glue them to baby food jar lids.
Thanks for offering them to us free of charge!
Enjoy them, Donna!
Thanks for this, jennifer! I used this for this year’s advent calendar. My family and I are loving it. Everyday, we do the readings, and before the kids get a chocolate, they have to answer a simple question about the reading (or something related to it). Thank you again!
See what I made here: http://instagram.com/p/h1u-hJH___/
I feel really stupid, but why I can’t I figure out how to download this?
Hi Shannon – I’m sorry you had trouble downloading the printable. If you look in the third paragraph from the bottom, you’ll see a teal link that reads, “click here.” Just click or double click that, and the printable will go to your downloads folder (or wherever downloads go on your system). I just tried and it worked fine for me. Hope that helps!
– Jennifer
These are great. I’m going to use them for my Faith Formation students as a game…to see if they can put the story in order without looking at the numbers on the back. 🙂
Erin – That idea rocks!
Thank you. Going to be using this in Youth Group on Tuesday night.
Thanks for letting me know. I’m so touched that these have been a blessing to so many people.
These are perfect for our table place cards at christmas dinner! Each plate will have one.