Every December someone tells me they’d love to draw something festive but they “can’t draw”. They can. What they can’t do is draw a photorealistic reindeer, which is a completely different problem and not one worth having. A robin is an egg with a beak. A snowman is three circles. Easy Christmas drawing ideas are easy because the shapes underneath are ones you already know.
Below are 30 simple Christmas things to draw, grouped so you can find one fast. I’ve also drawn every single one of them onto free printable practice sheets, with an empty box beside each so you can copy along. Pop your email in below and they’ll land in your inbox.
Table of Contents
What Makes a Christmas Drawing Easy?
Quick Answer: An easy Christmas drawing is one built from three or four basic shapes — circles, triangles, ovals and straight lines — with the detail added on top rather than drawn from observation. Draw it small, and keep it to a single outline with no shading.
The difference between “easy” and “hard” isn’t the subject, it’s the approach. A reindeer drawn from a photograph is hard. A reindeer drawn as a rounded triangle head, two long ovals for ears and a pair of branching lines for antlers is easy, and it reads as a reindeer from across the room.
Two other things make a drawing easy. Size — small drawings look neater, because your hand has less distance to wobble over. And repetition — the fourth robin you draw will be better than the first, and it costs you ninety seconds to get there.
What Do You Need?
A pen. Genuinely. Everything on this page can be drawn with a biro on the back of an envelope, and plenty of my favourite pages started exactly that way.
If you want the drawings to look crisper, a fineliner helps more than anything else. I use a Sakura Pigma Micron set — the 03 and 05 nibs are right for drawings this size, and the ink doesn’t smudge if you colour over it later. For a bolder, more graphic line the Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens are lovely.
If you’d like to add colour, Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils are soft enough to fill these little shapes in one pass without looking scratchy. And if you fancy adding a bit of hand-lettering — “Merry Christmas” across the top of a page of doodles looks great — Tombow Fudenosuke brush pens are the forgiving option.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase. I only recommend things I actually use.
6 Tree and Trimmings Drawings
- Christmas tree. Three stacked triangles getting smaller as they go up, a little rectangle trunk, then dots for baubles. Wavy bottom edges look better than straight ones.
- Bauble. A circle, a small rectangle cap on top, and a loop through it. Add a band of pattern across the middle — stripes, dots, zigzags — and it stops looking like a ball.
- Star. Five points, drawn as one continuous zigzag round rather than five separate triangles. Nobody’s is symmetrical and it genuinely doesn’t matter.
- Wreath. Two circles, one inside the other, filled with short leaf strokes all going the same direction round the ring. Add three berries and a bow at the bottom.
- String of lights. A gently sagging line with small teardrops hanging off it, each with a tiny cap. Vary which way they tilt.
- Wrapped present. A square, a ribbon crossing it, and a bow made of two loops and two tails. Add a stripe or a dot pattern to the paper.
6 Winter Friends to Draw
- Snowman. Three circles, biggest at the bottom. Carrot nose, coal dots, twig arms, a scarf that flicks out to one side. The flick is what gives it life.
- Robin. An egg shape lying on its side, a small triangle beak, a dot eye, two thin legs and a wedge tail. Shade the chest and you’re done.
- Reindeer. A rounded triangle head, two leaf-shaped ears, a big oval nose and two branching antlers. Keep the antlers uneven — real ones are.
- Penguin. A tall oval, a lighter oval belly inside it, two small flippers, a triangle beak and two little webbed feet sticking out at the bottom.
- Polar bear. A wide oval body, a smaller circle head, two round ears and four stubby legs. Round everything — no straight lines anywhere.
- Gingerbread man. A circle head on a rounded body, stubby arms and legs, two dots, a smile, and a squiggle of icing at each wrist and ankle.
6 Festive Food Drawings
- Candy cane. A walking-stick shape drawn as two parallel lines, then diagonal stripes across it. Keep every stripe leaning the same way.
- Gingerbread house. A square with a triangle roof, a scalloped icing edge along the roofline, an arched door and two small windows.
- Mince pie. A shallow fluted case — a rounded shape with short vertical ticks round the edge — and a little pastry star sitting on top.
- Mug of cocoa. A rounded cup, a C-shaped handle, three marshmallow blobs poking over the rim and two wavy steam lines.
- Iced star biscuit. A star with a second star outline just inside it for the icing, and a few dots for sprinkles.
- Christmas pudding. A dome, a wobbly cap of sauce dripping down the sides, and a sprig of holly with two berries on top.
6 Cozy Things to Draw
- Stocking. An L shape with rounded corners and a fluffy cuff across the top. Add a band of knitted pattern up the leg.
- Mitten. A rounded rectangle with a thumb bump on one side and a cuff at the wrist. Draw a pair, slightly different sizes.
- Bobble hat. A dome with a turned-up brim and a circle bobble on top. Vertical lines up the dome make it read as knitted.
- Candle in a jar. A cylinder, a wick, a teardrop flame, and a small halo of light lines around it.
- Lantern. A rectangle with a peaked roof, a ring handle on top, a candle inside and a base. Four straight lines do most of the work.
- Sled. A long flat seat, two curved runners underneath, and a rope loop at the front.
6 Sky and Snow Drawings
- Snowflake. Six lines from a centre point, then two small ticks partway along each arm. Add a dot at every tip.
- Shooting star. A five-pointed star with three tapering lines trailing behind it.
- Cloud. A row of overlapping bumps along the top and one flat line underneath. Uneven bumps look better than even ones.
- Holly sprig. Two or three spiky-edged leaves meeting at a stem, with three berries clustered where they join.
- Pinecone. An egg shape filled with rows of small overlapping U shapes, each row offset from the one above.
- Jingle bell. A dome with a flat base, a slot across the bottom, a small loop on top and a ribbon.
What’s in the Free Practice Pack?
Eight A4 pages, printable on ordinary paper. Five of them are practice sheets — one per group above — with each drawing on the left and an empty box beside it to copy into:
- Tree and Trimmings — tree, bauble, star, wreath, lights, present.
- Winter Friends — snowman, robin, reindeer, penguin, polar bear, gingerbread man.
- Festive Food — candy cane, gingerbread house, mince pie, cocoa, star biscuit, pudding.
- Cozy Things — stocking, mitten, bobble hat, candle, lantern, sled.
- Sky and Snow — snowflake, shooting star, cloud, holly, pinecone, jingle bell.
Then there’s a Your Turn page of twelve empty boxes for drawing from memory, plus a cover and a page about the Creations Club.
5 Tips That Make Christmas Drawings Look Better
- Draw it small. About the size of a postage stamp. Small drawings hide wobbles; big ones display them.
- Draw each one three times. Once to work out the shapes, once to get it wrong differently, once properly. The third is always the keeper.
- Use two line weights. A thicker pen for the outline and a thinner one for the details inside. It’s the cheapest way to make a doodle look designed.
- Group them on the page. A scattered handful of doodles looks like a mess; a neat row or a tidy grid of the same doodles looks like a piece of work. Same drawings, different impression.
- Leave the white space. Resist filling every gap. A page that’s half empty reads as calm and deliberate.
Want More Printables Like These?
If practice sheets are how you like to learn, the Artsydee Creations Club is where the rest of them live — a growing library of drawing templates, coloring pages, watercolour outlines and junk journal kits, with something new every week and the seasonal sets landing first.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some easy Christmas things to draw?
A Christmas tree, a bauble, a star, a snowman, a robin, a candy cane, a stocking and a snowflake are the eight easiest, because each is built from two or three basic shapes. All thirty ideas on this page are drawn out on the free practice sheets.
What’s the easiest Christmas thing to draw for a complete beginner?
A candy cane. It’s two parallel curved lines and a set of diagonal stripes, and it looks unmistakably like a candy cane even when it’s drawn badly. Start there, then try the snowman.
Are these suitable for children?
Yes — these are the most child-friendly sheets I make. Roughly age five and up can copy most of them, and the copy-box layout means a child can work down the page independently.
Can I use them in a classroom?
Please do. Print as many copies as your class needs — just don’t sell them or share the file itself. Send people here and they can grab their own.
What can I use these drawings for?
Christmas cards, gift tags, place cards, journal spreads, wrapping paper drawn straight onto brown kraft, and the border of a December planner page. They’re designed to be small and repeatable for exactly this reason.
Final Thoughts
Pick one. Draw it three times. That’s the entire method, and it works whether you’ve got ten minutes or a whole evening. By the end of December you’ll have a page you’re quietly pleased with, which is a nicer thing to get out of the month than most.
Grab the free practice sheets below and start with the candy cane.
If you fill a page, I’d love to see it — I’m on Instagram and Pinterest, and there’s more drawing and painting over on YouTube.
You Might Also Like
- Christmas Drawing Ideas — the fuller list, including the more ambitious ones
- Gingerbread House Drawing — the step-by-step version, with free templates
- Cozy Christmas Coloring Pages — for evenings when you’d rather colour than draw
- Christmas Things to Draw — more festive subjects broken into simple shapes
Pin this for later so you can find the free practice sheets when you sit down to draw.
