Last year I wrapped up 25 Christmas books and each night we unwrapped and read 1 book before bed. It turned out to be a tradition to keep! This year I wrapped them in white paper and used a whole bunch of fun vintage ribbons I found in my Moms ribbon stash to wrap around them!
I do have my favorites and last year some of them didn’t get unwrapped until right before Christmas and I was sad we didn’t have them all month. So this year I added stamped numbers to them so they actually got unwrapped in a specific order.
We keep our books in our wagon next to our Christmas tree.
Pam is also going to start the tradition this year and together are working on building our Christmas libraries and finding really fun books. Between the two of us here are our favorite 25:
Who Will Help Santa This Year?
Who Will Guide My Sled Tonight?
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas?
The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
Some additional ones suggested by readers:
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
We are ALWAYS looking for new titles – so if you have a favorite that we haven’t listed PLEASE leave it in our comments! Merry Christmas and Happy Reading!
Little Porcupine’s Christmas, by Joseph Slate is a family favorite… illustrated by Felicia Bond.
Little Porcupine’s Christmas, by Joseph Slate is a family favorite… illustrated by Felicia Bond.
I love this idea! Two of our favorites that we look forward to reading each year are Twas the Night before Christmas and the Nutcracker. We also read the nativity story in Luke on Christmas Eve.
I would love to have you check out Carousel Publishing’s award winning book, The Myth of Santa’s Beard. It’s all about ethics and values and ends with the child receiving a snippet of Santa’s beard that is included in the book. You can see it and read the entire book at http://www.carousel-publishing.com. Let me know if you would like me to send you a copy to review. Sharon
My sister and I wrote a children’s picture book: “The Great PJ Elf Chase: A Christmas Eve Tradition.” It’s a 2014 B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree, a National Indie Excellence Finalist and a Readers’ Favorite 5-Star Review recipient. You can buy it on Amazon or at our website, http://www.TheGreatPJElfChase.com. We’d be honored if you added it to your collection.
Silver Packages is a great Christmas picture book. Love you list!
Kat from katandsquirrel.com
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll for sure have to check it out!
The Crippled Lamb makes me cry every time I read. My brother has special needs and is in a wheel chair. The Crippled Lamb is such a beautiful story of how we all have a place in this world.
What a great list! I’m in the mood for Christmas already and if you’re still looking for ideas, my two favorites are Red Ranger Came Calling and How Murray Saved Christmas. Reviewed here: http://theharrissisters.blogspot.com/2012/12/red-ranger-came-calling.html and here: http://theharrissisters.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-murray-saved-christmas.html. Hope you enjoy the suggestions!
The Polar Express by Chris VanAlsberg needs to be on this list
Try the newly out, The Christmas Tree by Kathy Laity, illustrated by Ingrid Beck, available Amazon.co.uk
You skipped 3 of my favorites: The Legend of the Candy Cane and Merry Christmas Amelia Bedelia. I also love one that is hard to find: The Christmas Collie, I use to loan it to fellow teachers when I was teaching as they loved it also.
Christmas Day in the Morning is awesome.
We do this too – my kids anticipate this all year =-)
Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Have a great week,
Beth =-)
This is a great list. My first niece has her birthday a few weeks before Christmas so I started a tradition of a Christmas book each year. She’s only going to be 4 this year, so this list will give me inspiration!
So far I’ve given her: Night Before Christmas, Gyo Fujikawa edition because I love the illustrations.
The Sweet Smell of Christmas, scratch and sniff and my brother and I loved it growing up.
Santa’s Stuck
And this year is Olive, the Other Reindeer.
Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree is next year…I went a little crazy when she was born. 😉
How fun is that! I love this idea! We love Who Is Coming To Our House by Joseph Slate!
“A Cobweb Christmas”
Fantastic, and I love the way you displayed them too. xo jen
Thanks for sharing this list! I’m always looking for new books to read to my daughter! I’d love for you to share this at my link party Submarine Sunday. It’s open until Friday @ 11:59pm. I hope you’ll stop by!
T’onna
http://www.navywifeypeters.blogspot.com/2012/11/submarine-sunday-7.html
What a great list! I would love to have you come share this or any of your great ideas at the link party on ‘Or so she says…’ There’s one going on right now (and every Saturday – Tuesday). Hope to see you there! http://www.oneshetwoshe.com
Cranberry Christmas is a favorite from my childhood that both my boys (ages 3 and 6) love now!
Olivia helps with Christmas is a fun one. And I love that you are reusing books! I am glad to be able to make this a fun memory and tradition with my kids without adding another expense to my holiday season.
The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado, is such a great one,
I love how you put them in the wagon. We do this but I don’t have a cute way to display them like that. I love it!!!
Dee, from The CSI Project
http://www.thecsiproject.com
Such a fun idea! Do you buy new books every year to keep adding to your collection or to you re-wrap Christmas books you already have?….A few favorites are “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” or the “The Spirit of Christmas.”
I wrap the same ones each year. Last year I didn’t have enough so I wrapped some library books up. I inherited all of my childhood Christmas books which helped me up my selection this last year. I am still 4 books short of 25 and am hoping to find 4 new ones to buy this year. I love when we unwrapped them last year and the boys would be so excited to see one of their books again. They even tried to guess which book it was by the size. It really is SO fun. We always turned the lights out except the Christmas tree and read to the light of the tree.
A Bad Kitty Christmas – I did the same book activity with my kids last year and have wrapped up most of the books for this year. Last year on a whim I picked up A Bad Kitty Christmas to add to our collection (we have a couple of the Bad Kitty books and they are pretty cute) and we ended up LOVING this book. Check it out!
http://www.thejoneschronicles.com
Jenny