Christmas Placemat Maker
A printable activity placemat with your child's name, a maze, a word search and colouring.
Your placemat, as it prints
Your placemat
Big outline letters across the placemat, ready to colour in. The name is also hidden in the word search.
Up to 10 words, separated by commas: Grandma, the dog's name, the town you drive to. Each one is hidden exactly once.
One for every child (class or family set)
Up to 40 names. Each child gets their own placemat with their own name, maze and word search grid, so neighbours at the table cannot copy. The PDF then has one page per child.
Private: the placemat is drawn inside your browser. The names and words you type are not uploaded or stored anywhere.
How to make a Christmas placemat
- Type the child's name and the words for the word search. The placemat redraws as you type. Family words work best: a cousin's name, the dog, the town where Grandma lives. Short words (3 to 8 letters) are easiest for young children to spot.
- Pick a layout and an age. Six layouts mix the maze, the word search, a picture to colour, a plate to draw Christmas dinner on and tic-tac-toe grids. Ages 4-6 gives an 8 x 8 maze and a word search whose words only run across and down in a grid of at most 10 x 10. Ages 7-10 gives a maze in the shape of a Christmas tree and a grid of up to 12 x 12 (still across and down only, so it can be finished before the food arrives).
- Download and print. Print at 100% (“Actual size”), landscape. The PDF has the placemat as one page; with a list of names it has one page per child.
Questions
Is the Christmas placemat printable free?
Yes: no sign-up, no watermark, no paid version. Everything is drawn in your browser, so the names and words you type never reach a server. The page counts only that a download happened, never what was on it.
Which paper size makes a real placemat?
A shop placemat is usually about 45 x 30 cm. A3 (42 x 29.7 cm) and Tabloid (11 x 17 in, 43.2 x 27.9 cm) are almost exactly that, so tick “Placemat size” if you can print them; most copy shops and libraries print A3 for little money. A4 and US Letter come out a bit smaller than a placemat, which suits small children and fits every home printer. The design is the same on all four: everything is scaled, so an A3 placemat has bigger letters and wider maze paths, not more puzzles.
How do I laminate it so it lasts?
Run it through a laminator in a pouch one size bigger than the print (an A3 pouch for A4 leaves a sealed edge all round; for A3 you need an A3 laminator). 125 micron (5 mil) pouches give a stiff mat that stays flat on the table; 80 micron (3 mil) ones are floppy. On a laminated placemat use dry-erase markers: they wipe off with a dry cloth and the maze and word search can be done again next year. Felt-tips and crayons do not come off cleanly. Without a laminator, clear self-adhesive book-covering film works: cover the front, fold the film round the edges and smooth out the bubbles from the middle.
Can I use it as a paper placemat instead?
Yes, and for a big family meal that is often easier: print one per child on the thickest paper your printer takes (120 to 160 g/m², or card), put one at every place, and let the children take theirs home. Print in black and white if they will colour the whole thing; it saves ink and the picture, the name and the plate are all line drawings meant for crayons. Paper soaks up spills, so a plain paper placemat is for one meal, not the whole season.
How do I make one for every child in a class or family?
Open One for every child and type the names, one per line. Every child gets a placemat with their own name in the outline letters and hidden in the word search, and their own maze and grid, so two children sitting side by side do not have the same answers. The same words go into every word search. Use the arrows under the preview to check each one, then Download makes one PDF with a page per child. The class-set PDF is drawn at 150 dpi, which keeps it small: three placemats come to about 0.4 MB, so a class of 30 is roughly 4 MB. It is made on your device and can take a minute on an older phone.
Where do the maze and word search come from?
From polyatic's own maze generator and word search maker; the name letters and the Christmas pictures come from the name colouring page. Each maze has exactly one way from the reindeer to the present. If a word is too long for the grid (more than 10 letters at ages 4-6, 12 at ages 7-10) the page tells you and leaves it out rather than squeezing it in. There is no answer sheet: the puzzles are small enough to check at the table, and if you want separate puzzle pages with answers, the Christmas activity book maker makes those.