One of our family’s favorite traditions each December is gathering around candles and twinkle lights to celebrate Advent and experience the joy and wonder of this season together. Part of this tradition involves reading a favorite Christmas book each evening!
We begin our time each night with the littlest child opening the next window in our advent calendar to see what’s inside. He pulls out one character of the Christmas story and places him on the scene. We LOVE this wooden nativity calendar that has delighted each of our children over the past ten years!
Next we go through the Advent reading for that day using our Family Advent Guide – “He’s Coming!” Each day has a Scripture to read, a question to talk about, and a song to sing together. We love this sacred time of focusing on Jesus, our coming King, together!
We then end our evening by letting a child pick one Christmas book out of the advent basket to open and read as a family. If it’s a longer book, we’ll slowly read it over a few evenings.
I love to wrap up all of our favorite Christmas books that we’ve collected over the years and place them in a basket by the fireplace. The kids LOVE opening one each night and never tire of hearing these same heartwarming stories that we read year after year.
Our whole family looks forward to these special evenings together and they have become the highlight of the season for us!
Here is the list of our favorite Christmas books that we wrap and read each year! While some are cute and fun, many of them are wonderfully rich and beautiful, deeply touching our hearts every time we read them.
Our Favorite Christmas Books:
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- The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski
- Mortimer’s Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson
- Bear Stays Up For Christmas by Karma Wilson
- The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden
- Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck
- The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston
- Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon
- The Twelve Days of Christmas by Alison Jay
- Apple Tree Christmas by Trinka Hakes Noble
- Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
- Christmas Farm by Mary Lyn Ray
- The True Story of St. Nicholas by Foster Eich
- Twas the Evening of Christmas by Glenys Nellist
- The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
- Room for a Little One by Martin Waddell
- Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Pollaco
- Mouse’s Christmas Gift by Mindy Baker
We also love reading one of Arnold Ytreeide’s Advent books at breakfast each morning. These stories continue a little bit each day through advent until Christmas day. Our family loves them! They include:
I pray some of these books work their way into your home and hearts as well and bless your family with joy and wonder this Christmas season.
With Love,
Kierra
