Free Christmas lights coloring pages: 44 printable PDF designs featuring strings of lights, reindeer, and comic tangled-up scenes, for kids of all ages. Each page can be downloaded as a PDF to print or colored online in the browser.
Electric Christmas lights trace back to a single evening in December 1882, when Edward H. Johnson, an executive at Edison’s electric company, hand-wired 80 red, white, and blue bulbs around a tree in his New York City parlor and set it rotating on a wooden base. Before that, families lit trees with real candles, a practice dangerous enough that it caused many house fires. Electric lights only became a genuinely mainstream tradition after President Grover Cleveland had the White House Christmas tree wired with them in 1895, and after a teenager named Albert Sadacca convinced his family’s novelty lighting company to sell colored strands to the public in 1917. This collection draws on that same tradition, mixing plain strings of lights with reindeer, trees, and a recurring comic scene of someone hopelessly tangled in their own lights.
With 44 pages split into five groups, generic and utility-named pages, reindeer and animal scenes, tangled-in-lights humor scenes, Christmas tree and decorating scenes, and seasonal greeting and bulb-focused pages, the set works well for both simple, quick coloring and a more detailed holiday scene.
What Is Inside This Collection
The 44 pages fall into five groups, based on the setting or character each design centers on.
Generic and Utility-Named Pages
20 pages filed under repeated titles like “Free Christmas Lights Coloring Page” or “Christmas Lights Printable” rather than a specific scene. A classic four-color rotation, Scarlet, Sunglow, Sky Blue, and Fern Green, repeated evenly along the string, gives these pages the traditional string-light look.
Reindeer and Animal Scenes
11 pages pairing a reindeer, moose, cat, or panda with a string of lights. Sepia or Brown fur, with a Scarlet nose for any Rudolph-style reindeer, pairs well with lights colored in bright, contrasting jewel tones.
Tangled-in-Lights Humor Scenes
4 pages showing a person or character comically caught up in a long string of lights, Santa, an elf, or a businessman among them. Keep the figure in neutral, everyday clothing colors so the tangled string of bright lights stands out as the visual joke.
Christmas Tree and Decorating Scenes
5 pages showing a tree being strung with lights or fully lit and decorated. Forest Green for the tree itself, with the same four-color light rotation used consistently from top to bottom, keeps these pages looking cohesive.
Seasonal Greeting and Bulb-Focused Pages
4 pages built around a holiday greeting or a close-up view of the light bulbs themselves. Since these pages zoom in on the lights, making each bulb a fully distinct color, rather than repeating a pattern, lets each one stand on its own.
What These Christmas Lights Coloring Pages Do
Fine motor practice in a repeating bulb pattern. Coloring a long string of small, individual light bulbs, keeping each one a distinct color while staying inside its own small outline, asks for the same repeated, careful precision the American Academy of Pediatrics credits to the fine motor benefits of structured coloring.
A real backstory behind a decorative subject. Because electric Christmas lights only became mainstream after real safety concerns with candle-lit trees, coloring one of these pages alongside a short account of that history gives a decorative subject a genuine, verifiable backstory rather than just a seasonal image.
A calm, structured task. A 2005 Art Therapy Journal study linked structured, repetitive coloring to a measurable drop in anxiety, and a string of lights, bulb after bulb in a fixed, repeating pattern, offers an unusually literal version of that same repetitive, calming structure.
A joke rooted in a real holiday frustration. The recurring scene of a person or animal comically tangled in a long string of lights pokes fun at a genuinely common holiday mishap, since real strings of lights are exactly as prone to tangling as these pages suggest.
How to Color Christmas Lights Coloring Pages Well
- Classic multicolor bulbs: Repeat a four-color rotation, Scarlet, Sunglow, Sky Blue, Fern Green, evenly along the string for the traditional look most associated with string lights.
- Reindeer and animal pages: Sepia or Brown fur, with a Scarlet nose for any Rudolph-style reindeer, and let the lights themselves use bright, contrasting jewel tones against the fur.
- Tangled-in-lights scenes: Keep the person or animal in neutral, everyday colors so the tangled string of bright lights reads clearly as the visual joke.
- Christmas tree scenes: Forest Green for the tree itself, with the same four-color light rotation used consistently from top to bottom.
- Bulb-focused pages: Since these zoom in on the lights themselves, make each bulb a fully distinct color rather than a repeating pattern, letting each one stand on its own.
- Icicle and fairy-light style pages: A cooler palette, Sky Blue and White, suits these more delicate, cascading designs better than the bold primary colors used on traditional string lights.
5 Creative Craft Ideas With Christmas Lights Coloring Pages
1. Paper Light String Garland. Color several individual bulb shapes, cut them out, and string them together with yarn or ribbon to make a real hanging garland. Spacing the bulbs evenly and alternating the color order gives the finished garland the same rhythm as a real string of lights.
2. Window Light Display. Color a page with bold marker outlines, tape it inside a window, and let daylight shine through the colored bulbs. This works especially well with the icicle or fairy-light style pages, since their more delicate patterns interestingly catch the light.
3. Holiday Card Front. Color a favorite Christmas tree or light-bulb page, trim it down, and glue it to the front of a folded card. Writing a short holiday message inside turns a simple coloring page into an actual card someone can send or receive.
4. Tangled Lights Story Prompt. Color one of the tangled-in-lights scenes and write a short, silly story about how that particular character got so tangled up. Reading the finished story out loud is a fun way to turn a coloring page into a small piece of holiday storytelling.
5. Reindeer Light Mobile. Color one of the reindeer-with-lights pages, cut it out, and hang it from a hoop or branch alongside a few individually colored bulb shapes. Layering the reindeer and bulbs at slightly different heights gives the mobile some visual depth once it’s finished.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Christmas light coloring pages?
Printable designs featuring Christmas lights, split between generic and utility-named pages, reindeer and animal scenes, tangled-in-lights humor scenes, Christmas tree and decorating scenes, and seasonal greeting and bulb-focused pages. This collection has 44 pages, free to download as a PDF or color directly online.
Who invented electric Christmas lights?
Edward H. Johnson, an executive at Edison’s electric company, is credited with creating the first electrically lit Christmas tree in December 1882, hand-wiring 80 red, white, and blue bulbs around a tree in his New York City home.
Why did electric lights replace candles on Christmas trees?
Christmas trees were traditionally lit with real candles, a practice dangerous enough that it caused many house fires; electric lights offered the same glowing effect without that same fire risk.
When did Christmas lights become widely popular?
Electric Christmas lights became widely popular after President Grover Cleveland had the White House Christmas tree wired with them in 1895, and after commercial sales of affordable colored strands began in the late 1910s.
Why are so many pages in this collection so similarly named?
Many of the pages in this set share generic titles, like “Free Christmas Lights Coloring Page” or “Christmas Lights Printable,” with little to distinguish them beyond word order. At the same time, a smaller number carry a real scene, like a reindeer or a tangled character.
Are Christmas lights coloring pages suitable for young children?
Yes. Most pages use simple, bold outlines that suit children as young as 3 or 4. The tangled-in-lights scenes and detailed tree pages work well for slightly older children who want more to color.
What’s the joke behind the “tangled in lights” pages?
Real strings of Christmas lights are notorious for tangling into knots, so a person or animal comically caught up in a long string plays on a genuinely common holiday frustration rather than an invented joke.
Can this collection be used for a classroom Christmas activity?
Yes. The bulb-focused and simple tree pages work well for a general classroom decorating activity, while the tangled-in-lights scenes add a bit of humor that older students tend to enjoy.
Start Coloring
Download any page by clicking the design. No account, email, or payment is required. Pages print directly from the browser at full resolution or open in the online coloring tool for screen use. Share finished pages on Facebook or Pinterest with the share buttons at the top of each design page.
