Here’s a super easy wooden holy family craft to add to a Nativity Display and other Christmas Decorations. (First published December 6, 2016; this post is updated and republished to improve the content.)
Add a touch of magic to your Christmas decorations with this simple wooden holy family nativity craft for kids and adults. Make this easy DIY holy family craft to display in a Nativity Scene with your Christmas home decor this season. Wooden peg dolls make creating this simple Christmas nativity craft super easy!
Related: Meaningful Christmas Traditions for a Magical Holiday
Related: Christmas Gifts Kids Can Make Your Family Will Love!
Easy DIY Holy Family Craft for Christmas
This easy Christmas nativity scene craft requires a few wooden peg dolls, a walnut, and a scrap of fabric. My family is lucky to live across the street from an almond and walnut orchard. There are always strays that don’t get picked up by the harvesting equipment.
So they don’t go to waste, the farm owner has told us that we are welcome to pick up and take any stray walnuts we find after harvest. Of course, we are happy to help. So, my daughter and I decided to make a few crafts with them to share with you.
After we finished our simple stone advent calendar and craft stick nativity stable, we decided to make a minimalist nativity scene to go with it. And we think placing baby Jesus in a walnut half-shell is the perfect way to complete this easy Christmas nativity scene.
How to Make Baby Jesus Craft for DIY Holy Family
There are two ways to make the Baby Jesus craft for the nativity scene, depending on your available supplies and how you will use them. If you want to make Baby Jesus with a small wooden peg doll, as shown in the photographs for this post, follow the step-by-step instructions below.
If, however, you want to learn how to make a Baby Jesus craft with a wooden bead instead of a wooden peg doll, click the link to read the DIY tutorial. It shares how to make a Baby Jesus Ornament in a half-walnut shell with a wooden bead. Skip the step of adding a twine hanger if you won’t be hanging it as a Christmas ornament.
Or make one without the hanger for your Christmas Nativity Scene and several more with the hanger to hang on the Christmas tree. You might also enjoy these DIY Christmas Ornaments for kids and adults.
DIY Wooden Holy Family Craft Supplies
- Wooden peg dolls
- 1/2 walnut shell (you might need a walnut cracker or walnut opener)
- Scrap of Ivory or brown burlap
- Glue gun with glue sticks
The wooden peg doll set recommended on the list above contains enough peg dolls to make this holy family craft, peg doll elf ornaments, rainbow peg dolls, and winter fairy peg dolls! The rainbow peg dolls and winter fairies make great gift ideas for the kids.
Safety note: Glue guns are hot and dangerous tools. When using a glue gun, children should always be under direct supervision.
How to Make a Wooden Holy Family for a Nativity Scene
Please read through the step-by-step instructions to make wooden holy family crafts before getting started so you know the steps involved and what to expect.
1. Crack Walnuts for the Baby Jesus Craft
- Follow the easy walnut cracking instructions HERE to get two usable halves for your Baby Jesus crafts. (The walnut cracking tutorial has a DIY video tutorial to make it easy to learn how to crack a walnut to get two whole, usable halves for Baby Jesus crafts.)
- Or, pass the walnut cracking off on the kids. Cracking walnuts is an excellent hand-strengthening activity.
HOW TO CRACK WALNUTS FOR Baby Jesus WALNUT CRAFTS
- My daughter loves cracking and eating walnuts, so the first time we made Baby Jesus crafts, I placed a bowl of walnuts in front of her and let her have it. When she was finished, she had a tummy full of walnuts, a pile of shells, and a handful of useable halves.
- If you try this option, just be sure to leave a few walnuts aside in case the kids don’t have any useable halves to make crafts with when they are finished. You can always use this walnut-cracking tutorial to crack the walnuts you left aside into useable halves for the Baby Jesus crafts.
2. Cut burlap squares (Or Another Fabric)
- You will need one square or triangle of burlap (or another type of fabric) approximately three by three inches.
- Ensure each fabric scrap is big enough to swaddle the tiny baby Jesus peg doll for each walnut half.
- In the photo below, you can see my daughter cutting a square of burlap from a burlap scrap from the remains of a sewing project, but any fabric scrap large enough will work!
3. Swadle or Wrap a Small Baby Peg Doll in Burlap Or Other Fabric.
- Wrap up the most petite wooden peg doll from THIS SET (or use THESE baby peg dolls with rounded edges) in burlap or another fabric scrap.
- We tried this a few times in a few different ways using different types of fabric scraps, and they all worked perfectly.
- All you need to do is swaddle the wooden peg doll in burlap or another fabric and glue it down using a glue gun in any way that works.
- It doesn’t need to look pretty because you will shove the swaddled baby wooden peg doll into a half-walnut shell, messy side down, to complete the Baby Jesus craft.
- You can see an example of how we wrapped one of our Baby Jesus crafts in the photo below.
- Once again, if you want to learn how to make this craft with a wooden bead instead of a peg doll, look at the directions to make Walnut Shell Manger Christmas Ornaments.
4. Glue Baby Jesus into the Half Walnut Shell
- First, add a big dollop of glue to the inside of the 1/2 walnut shell.
- Next, place the swaddled Baby Jesus craft into the walnut shell before the glue begins to dry.
- Put the fabric-wrapped peg doll into the half-walnut shell and tuck the ends of the fabric into the walnut shell.
- Please ensure children are taught how to safely handle a glue gun before inviting them to help make this peg doll baby Jesus in a walnut shell manger.
- I held the walnut shell for my daughter, so adding glue to the baby Jesus was easier for her.
5. Add a Peg Doll Couple to Represent Mary and Joesph to the Holy Family DIY
- To complete this easy wooden peg doll holy family craft, select a peg doll couple to represent Mary and Joseph.
- Leave them in natural, raw, unfinished wooden form as shown in the photographs, or decorate them however you wish.
- Put Mary on the left and Joseph on the right.
- Next, place the baby Jesus in a walnut shell manger with Mary and Joseph so that he sits in front of and between them so Mary sits to the left of Baby Jesus’ right hand.
6. Display the Wooden Holy Family Craft in a Nativity Scene (optional).
- Set up a Nativity Scene Christmas Display. (Click the link to learn how.)
- We also made a nativity stable craft with popsicle sticks to display with our DIY wooden holy family in our homemade Nativity Scene.
- You might also enjoy making a stone advent calendar or an advent spiral to go with it. (Click on the links to see all the fun pictures and learn how to make your own!)
Easy DIY Holy Family Christmas Craft for Kids and Adults
Add this beautiful, easy DIY wooden holy family craft made with wooden peg dolls to your Christmas craft list this holiday season. Both kids and adults will enjoy this easy Christmas nativity craft!
You might also enjoy this list of Christmas Traditions or these winter activities with a printable winter bucket list. Learn more about Rhythms of Play HERE!
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