Getly
December is the one month when almost every household with children prints coloring pages. A Santa sheet keeps a five-year-old busy while dinner cooks, a detailed gingerbread village keeps an adult off the phone for an evening, and a class of twenty-five needs something calm for the last afternoon before the break. The same file rarely does all three jobs. This guide is about picking the right Christmas coloring set for the person who will hold the crayon, and printing it so it works.
We looked at the Christmas and winter listings on the Getly coloring shelves (Coloring Pages and Coloring Books), measured October 2026: 14 active Christmas or winter coloring listings out of 245 on the two shelves, with a median paid price of $3.99. Every one of the 14 ships a PDF, and the PDFs we could read hold a median of 32 pages.
Kids or adults: decide before you browse
Christmas coloring splits cleanly into two products that happen to share a theme. Half of the Christmas listings on the shelf are written for adults and half mention kids, and the drawings look nothing alike.
- For ages 3 to 8: thick outlines, one big subject per page (a snowman, a stocking, Santa's sleigh), large open areas. Crayons and chunky markers need room. A set like Christmas Coloring Pages for Kids 4-8 (35 pages) or the story-led Santa and His Elves book is built this way.
- For adults: fine lines, patterns, small cells, scenes with depth. Look at the single-sheet designs such as the Folk Art Gingerbread Village, the Linocut Winter Owl or the Art Deco Fan Fir Tree.
- In between: "bold and easy" sets for adults, seniors and older kids, with clear lines but grown-up subjects. Cozy Christmas Bold and Easy (32 pages) is an example, and it is the right pick for a grandparent with tired eyes or a mixed-age table.
The fastest test is the preview: zoom into one image. If the smallest closed shape is smaller than a fingernail, it is an adult page, whatever the title says.
Line weight and what you color with
Line weight is not only about age. It decides which tools work.
| Tool | Works best with | Paper |
|---|---|---|
| Crayons | Bold lines, big shapes | Normal copy paper |
| Coloured pencils | Any line weight, best for fine detail | Copy paper or 100 g/m² |
| Felt-tip markers | Medium to bold lines | 100 to 120 g/m², single-sided |
| Alcohol markers, gel pens | Adult designs | Cardstock, one design per sheet |
| Watercolour | Watercolour-style templates | Watercolour paper, if your printer feeds it |
Some Christmas sheets are drawn for paint rather than pencils, such as the Christmas Amaryllis watercolour template. Those need thicker paper than a home printer usually takes, so check your tray before you buy.
Paper size and printing
Most Christmas coloring listings on the shelf mention US Letter and a good share mention A4 as well. If you are in Europe and only Letter is listed, print with "Fit to page" so the drawing is not cropped. A few practical rules for December printing:
- Print in black or greyscale. A line drawing gains nothing from colour ink, and ink runs out at the worst time in December.
- One side only. Markers bleed through, so never print a coloring PDF double-sided.
- Print a test page first. Check that the outer border is complete before printing thirty copies for a class or a party.
- Use 100 to 120 g/m² paper for pages that will be gifted or hung on the fridge. It feels like a real book page and takes markers.
PDF or PNG
All 14 Christmas listings we measured deliver a PDF, which is what you want for printing: the page size is fixed and you print the whole set in one go. If you color on a tablet in an app such as Procreate, a PDF still works: import it, or export a single page as an image. Look for PNG files with a transparent background only if you want the lines on their own layer.
Page count matters for value. The Christmas PDFs we could read range from 8 to 36 pages. A single detailed adult sheet at $3 to $4 is a different purchase from a 35-page kids' book at $5.99; both are fair, but compare per page if you need volume for a class.
The classroom licence
This is the part teachers skip. Of the 14 Christmas coloring listings, 12 set a personal-use licence. Personal use covers printing for your own children at home. Printing 25 copies for your class, or a stack for a library craft table, is usually not covered unless the description says "classroom use" or the seller agrees in writing.
Two simple ways to stay clean: buy from a listing that names classroom use, or message the seller before buying and ask. Most sellers answer quickly, and some will happily allow one class. Reselling printed copies or uploading the pages anywhere else is not allowed on a personal licence, whether the set was free or paid.
Free Christmas coloring sets on Getly
There are free coloring books on the shelf, for example My Big Animal Coloring Book for Kids, though not Christmas-themed. In December, also check Free this week, where sellers put paid products up for free for a few days. The Christmas sets themselves are cheap: Christmas Animals and My First Christmas cost $1.50 each, and the Christmas Mega Pack bundles three books for $2.50.
A five-point check before you print
- Who colors: zoom into a preview and match line weight to age and tools.
- Size: Letter or A4? If only one is listed, plan to "Fit to page".
- Pages: how many unique drawings, not counting covers?
- Paper: heavier paper and one side only if markers are coming out.
- Licence: personal use, or does it say classroom?
On Getly you can pay by card (Apple Pay and Google Pay where available) or in USDT or USDC. Every purchase has a refund window of at least 30 days, and the files stay in your library, so next December you can print the same set again.
