It's that time of year when everyone starts sharing their favorite Advent/Christmas books {and Amazon affiliate links}! We have long had the tradition of wrapping up a picture book to share each night of Advent and the 12 days of Christmas. Usually, I select which books are read which night. I decided to do something a little different this year. I spread all of our books out on the bed and brought the big kids in to tell me which ones were their "must have" books. Which books do we HAVE to read because it's just not Advent without them?
I was a little surprised by some of the picks, not surprised at all by a few and laughing hilariously at the ones that were chosen by them all (including my husband) for the "please let's NEVER read this again" pile… I'm looking at you, An Orange for Frankie! A few of these were sentimental favorites from their early childhood. Bigboy, as big as he is, is still partial to anything that has the word Christmas and kitten in it. Oliver All Alone was such a beloved story to Rain that it used to stay on her shelf all year long.
I'm sharing the list here hoping to introduce you to our favorites but also as a permanent record for this forgetful brain of mine.
While creating this list, I was horrified to see how many of our must have favorites are out of print. I better start looking now for gently used copies to hand down to future grandchildren.
MUST HAVES!
- The Shepherd's Christmas Story
- Corgiville Christmas
- The Homeless Christmas Tree
- Legend of the Candy Cane
- Christmas Cookies: Bite-Sized Holiday Lessons
- A Baker's Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale
- Marta and the Manger Straw
- The Christmas Cat
- The Christmas Kitten
- Stephen's Feast
- Hanna's Christmas
- A Gift from St. Nicholas
- All for the Newborn Baby
- Father & Son: A Nativity Story
- The Three Gifts of Christmas
- The Lady of Guadalupe
- Christmas in the Trenches
- The Christmas Knight
- The Miracle of St. Nicholas
- Through the Animal's Eyes: A Story of the First Christmas
- Snowflake Bentley
- Saint Francis Celebrates Christmas
- Gift of the Magi
- The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
- One Snowy Night
- The Night of Las Posadas
- Christ Child
- Oliver All Alone
- Mortimer's Christmas Manger
- Angela and the Baby Jesus
- Papa's Christmas Gift: Around the World on the Night Before Christmas
- The Miraculous Child
An Orange for Frankie (not a fan of the illustrations and... he dies!)
The Little Match Girl (hauntingly beautiful illustrations but... she dies alone… in the snow!!)
The Little Fir Tree (weird little tree that can survive being transplanted year after year but hey... at least the kid doesn't die!!!)
Now, we have a ton of Christmas books. Seriously… they would not all fit on my bed, but then again, my bed is a Queen size so, maybe that's not so bad. We decided to pull those books that we all liked but were more like chapter books instead of picture books and set them out in their own little basket this year so that everyone can enjoy them on their own time. I might list those later if anyone is interested.
And for anyone looking for Advent activity ideas, here is a an almost complete archive of our Advent adventures past:
And here is an old post for those of you tempted to stress out and try to do ALL THE ADVENT ACTIVITIES:
