Gifts at the Manger

No. Gifts at the Manger does not shame kids for enjoying presents or ask your family to give up the Christmas traditions you love. It uses their natural excitement about gifts to point them toward something more. Kids explore the gifts from Christmas night, the gifts God gives to us all, and the gifts they can give back to God. Presents remain part of the celebration while your kids discover even more reasons to celebrate.

Choose one book for each child at their level: Primary for ages 4–7, Junior for ages 8–12, or Youth for ages 13 and up. Primary students complete the study with a parent, while Junior and Youth students work more independently. Your child will also need a Bible in any translation. Add the Parent Guide for a way to dig deeper into the study for yourself and lead family discussions.

That’s okay. The 25 lessons are designed for the days leading up to Christmas, but families make the schedule work in different ways. If you miss a day, you can pick up where you left off, complete two lessons another day if that works for your family, or finish after Christmas. One mom described the experience as having “no overwhelming pressure to be perfect or do all the things.”

Add the Gifts at the Manger Magnet Board to give your family a visual reminder of what your kids are discovering each day. As you count down to Christmas, add each day’s gift to the board and keep the gifts God gives through Jesus in front of your family throughout December.

We are Bible-believing evangelical Christians. It's our mission to create products that handle the Word of God accurately and literally. We aim to get families into the Word for themselves and challenge them to read and think about it carefully rather than relying on the words and ideas of others. We believe all families should be asking about the theology of the resources they use, as nothing is neutral and everything has a worldview. Here is what we believe:

The Bible is God's Word and the final authority for everything we believe and how we live. It is completely true and trustworthy in all that it says, given to us by God down to its very words. There is one God who has always existed as three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God created all things, including human beings, by His own direct act. Salvation is a free and forever-secure gift, received by grace through faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came in human flesh, was born of a virgin, and rose bodily from the grave. He will one day return in person, in His own body, to reign on the earth for a thousand years. This return will be personal, bodily, and premillennial.

Read our complete Statement of Faith here.

This is by far the most common question we get around here. Please check out this video. I'll show you the differences between the levels and walk you through how to use them as a family!

You'll want to purchase one copy per child at their specific age level. This will enable children to study at their level and record their own drawings and responses to the Word.

We highly encourage you to make sure that each child can participate by having their own book on their own level. You can learn more about why in this video.

Each Bible study is a slightly different length, ranging from 20 lessons to 28 lessons. We suggest doing one lesson a day. Most kids find that it takes about 15 minutes a day. 

There is no scripture written out in our studies, only references. When it comes to growing faith, it's crucial that kids look up passages in the Bible for themselves and our studies are written to help them do that!

We study and write using ESV, as well as a variety of translations. Special attention has been given to make sure kids can answer questions regardless of the translation they are using.