Christmas word scramble guide

How to solve a Christmas word scramble

The rules, a Christmas word taken apart step by step, the Christmas words that hide another word, and which sheet to print for a classroom, a party or a senior center.

Written and reviewed by Brian Hamilton and Karan HamiltonUpdated October 14, 2026

How to play a Christmas word scramble

  1. Each line shows the letters of one Christmas word in a jumbled order.
  2. Use every letter exactly once to make the word, and write it on the line or in the boxes.
  3. On Easy the first letter is already in front, and a word bank, if printed, lists every answer.
  4. The answer key is on the second page.
Part of the Easy sheet above
ScrambleAnswer
GTIFGift
HLYOLHolly
TEISLNTinsel
JYFLUOJoyful
SLGHIESleigh

A word scramble is also called a word jumble or an unscramble-the-words sheet; they are the same puzzle.

How to unscramble a Christmas word, step by step

Here is a Hard scramble from this page: KGTNOSCI. On Hard no letter is in its place and no two letters that sit together in the answer are left together, so there is nothing to read. Take it apart instead.

  1. Count the letters and find the vowels. 8 letters and only 2 vowels, O and I, so the consonants must sit together in pairs.
  2. Try a common ending. The letters include I, N and G, so put ING at the end. That leaves KTOSC.
  3. Look for pairs that go together. KTOSC holds CK and ST. Set them side by side and O is all that is left to place.
  4. Read it against the theme. Something on a Christmas list, with CK and ST and ING on the end: STOCKING.

When you are stuck

  • Think of the theme. Almost every word on the list is something you could point to in December, so look around the room.
  • Try two of the same letter side by side. It is a guess, not a rule: 17 of the 64 words on the full list have a double letter, as in BELLS, BLIZZARD, COOKIES, CRANBERRY and EVERGREEN.
  • Try -ER and -LY at the end. -ER ends 5 and -LY ends 3 of the 64 words on the full list.
  • Turn on the word bank for younger children: it turns guessing the word into putting letters in order.

Christmas words that hide another word

Some Christmas words are made of the same letters as another word. That matters twice on a scramble: the builder must never print the other word as the scramble, because a child would think it was already solved, and a solver who writes the other word has used the right letters.

Short words are where it bites. Shuffle NOEL at random and about one time in 8 it comes out as a real word (ENOL, LENO and LONE). STAR, which turns up on other Christmas sheets and is left off this list, does it about one time in 6 (ARTS, RATS, TARS and TSAR).

Christmas wordSame letters spellOn the classroom list
ANGELANGLE, GLEANNo
CANDLELANCEDYes
CAROLCORALYes
FEASTFATES, FEATSYes
MANGERGERMANNo
MITTENSSMITTENYes
NOELLONENo
PRESENTSERPENTYes
SANTASATANYes
TINSELENLIST, INLETS, LISTEN, SILENTYes

7 more list words share their letters only with rarer words, such as ERECTABLE for CELEBRATE and HYALOID for HOLIDAY. The builder treats them the same way.

  • None of these is ever printed as a scramble. The builder knows every arrangement of every list word that spells a word in a 172,823-word dictionary and skips them. SATAN for SANTA is not in the dictionary, so it is on a separate list of words no sheet may print.
  • The theme decides the answer. The sheet says Christmas at the top, so CAROL, not CORAL, is the answer. If a child writes the other word, the letters are right and the word just is not a Christmas one, and the answer key names it beside the answer, so whoever marks the sheet can see why.
  • Easy settles most of them. With the first letter already in front, CANDLE, MANGER, MITTENS, NOEL, PRESENT and TINSEL can only be the Christmas word. ANGEL and ANGLE, CAROL and CORAL, and FEAST and FATES start with the same letter, so for those a word bank is what rules the other word out.
  • No two words with the same letters share a sheet, so no scramble on a sheet has two Christmas answers.

The classroom list and the full list

The default list leaves out the four words that belong to the religious story, NATIVITY, MANGER, ANGEL and NOEL, because many US public schools keep classroom materials free of religious content. The full list puts them back for a church group, a Christian school or a family that wants them.

Either way the list stays concrete. Nearly every word is something you could point to in December, which is what makes a scramble solvable: a child who cannot see the word in the letters can still think of the things on the tree.

The classroom list: 60 words

  • Elves
  • Bells
  • Blizzard
  • Candle
  • Carol
  • Celebrate
  • Chestnut
  • Chimney
  • Christmas
  • Cocoa
  • Cookies
  • Cranberry
  • December
  • Decorate
  • Evergreen
  • Peppermint
  • Family
  • Feast
  • Festive
  • Fireplace
  • Frosty
  • Garland
  • Gingerbread
  • Glitter
  • Snowman
  • Holiday
  • Holly
  • Icicle
  • Jingle
  • Jolly
  • Joyful
  • Lantern
  • Merry
  • Mistletoe
  • Mittens
  • Ornament
  • Poinsettia
  • Wrapping
  • Present
  • Eggnog
  • Reindeer
  • Ribbon
  • Rudolph
  • Santa
  • Scarf
  • Season
  • Sleigh
  • Snowflake
  • Sparkle
  • Stocking
  • Tinsel
  • Toys
  • Tradition
  • Turkey
  • Winter
  • Wreath
  • Yuletide
  • Tree
  • Gift
  • Candy

Added by the full list

  • Angel
  • Manger
  • Nativity
  • Noel

The same lists as the Christmas word search. Every word is four to twelve letters, so none has an obvious three-letter twin like RAT, TAR and ART.

Which Christmas word scramble to print

Who it is forSettingsWhy
Kindergarten to 1st gradeClassroom list, Easy, short words, 8 words, word bank, letter boxes, outlines to colorThe first letter stays put and the boxes show the length, so the job is ordering letters, and the pictures are for whoever finishes first.
2nd to 5th gradeClassroom list, Medium, 12 words, name and date onNo letter is left in its place, but short chunks of the word survive, so most children can finish it in a lesson.
Middle schoolClassroom list, Hard, 14 words, no word bankEvery letter moved and no neighbors left together: the step-by-step method above is needed.
Office party or family tableFull list, Medium or Hard, 16 to 20 wordsLong enough to race, and the answer key settles who won.
Adults and puzzle fansFull list, Expert, long words, no word bankEach scramble looks like a word it is not, which slows down even good solvers.
Senior centersClassroom list, Easy, short words, 10 words, large print, word bankBig letters and the first letter in front, finishable in one sitting.
Church groups and Sunday schoolFull list, Easy or MediumThe full list adds ANGEL, MANGER, NATIVITY and NOEL.
DECORATE at each level, from the same engine as the sheets
EasyDOEETRCA1 letter in place, longest piece of the word left together: 2
MediumECERTDOA0 letters in place, longest piece of the word left together: 2
HardTOEAERCD0 letters in place, longest piece of the word left together: 1
ExpertACTREEOD0 letters in place, longest piece of the word left together: 1

What each level does to the letters is measured on the word scramble page.

Christmas word scramble games

Race at the party tableHand out the same sheet face down, start everyone at once, and the first to finish reads their answers out. The answer key settles any argument, and on Medium nobody can win by reading a word that was barely scrambled.
Team relaySplit a class into teams of four and give each team one sheet. One student solves a word, passes the pencil, and the next takes the next line. It turns a quiet worksheet into the loudest ten minutes before winter break.
Decide the gift-exchange orderAt a family or office exchange, whoever unscrambles their word first picks first. Print the party sheet, cut it into strips, and hand one scramble to each person.
One a day before the breakBuild a pack of six Easy sheets with eight words each and hand one out each morning of the last week and a half of school. Each sheet in a pack draws its own selection from the list.

Free to print, and what this page does not do

Every sheet is scrambled in your browser and there is no account. More in how we make puzzle packs. The terms of use let teachers, families, churches and senior centers print and copy the sheets and their answer keys.

  • The pictures come in color, as outlines to color in, or not at all, and sit on the puzzle pages only, never on the answer key. Ink saving thins the lines further.
  • Your own words are scrambled with the same rules but are not checked against the dictionary.
  • There are no picture clues for children who cannot read yet, and no bingo cards.