Christmas Word Search: Free Printable Puzzles With Answer Key

Make a Christmas word search

Choose a theme and a difficulty and press Make puzzle. The page picks words from the theme, hides each one once in the grid, and fills the rest with random letters. Print the puzzle for the table, and print the answer key too if you want to check it later.

Themes are Christmas classics, winter and snow, carols and songs, holiday food, and traditions around the world. Words are single words or short phrases shown without spaces in the grid.

Easy, medium and hard

Difficulty changes the grid size, the number of words and the directions they run.

• Easy: 10 by 10 grid, 8 short words, reading right or down. Good for young children.
• Medium: 13 by 13 grid, 12 words, also running diagonally.
• Hard: 15 by 15 grid, 18 words, running in all eight directions, including backward.

Puzzle codes and repeatable puzzles

Each puzzle shows a short puzzle code. Type the same code with the same theme, difficulty and words, and you get the identical puzzle. That lets you print a class set now and the answer key later, or share the code with another family. Leave the box blank for a new puzzle each time.

Use your own words

Type words in the box, one per line or separated by commas, and the puzzle uses them instead of the theme. Names of guests, a family holiday or classroom vocabulary all work. Use up to 20 words, with 3 or more letters, and no longer than the grid. Accents are removed and anything other than letters is dropped. If words do not fit together, the page tells you what to change.

The words you type are not sent, stored or shared. They stay in this browser tab and disappear when you close it.

Printing and the answer key

Press Print to open your browser’s print dialog. The puzzle prints on one page and the answer key on the next, with each hidden word highlighted. Untick the answer key box to print only the puzzle. Choose Save as PDF if you want a file.