christmas day in the morning by pearl s buck

The Twelve Days of Christmas by Jan Brett.

I Got the Christmas Spirit by Connie Schofield-Morrison and Frank Morrison.

Joy to the World: Tomie de Paola’s Christmas Stories.

Frog and Toad All Year by Arnold Lobel (for the story “Christmas Eve”).

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.

The Night Before the Night Before Christmas! by Richard Scarry.I’d love to hear your favorites in the comments section! Family favorites: Here are some of our favorite Christmas countdown books. Hint: if you’re still building your collection, wrap some library books. You could count down to the new year, a birthday, the first day of spring-whatever strikes your fancy. Right now my own family is looking ahead to Christmas, but this same bookish countdown format can work for a variety of holidays and special days. (And don’t discount the nostalgia factor for when an older child opens a beloved winter book they loved as a wee one!)

It’s certainly one of my favorites.īecause you’re in charge of the books here, this countdown can work for a variety of ages and stages. Even as our kids get older, this continues to be a beloved family tradition. Or you could label the books with numbers 1 through 25, and take turns opening the books. You could rotate who gets to choose a book from the pile each night. Beginning December 1, we unwrap one every night, until Christmas Day. Stories are already built into our family’s rhythm, so we wrap a gigantic pile of Christmas and winter-themed books (most of which we already owned) and stack them by the fireplace. The daily activity seemed like one more thing to get done instead of a meaningful way to prepare for Christmas.īut then we landed on a tradition that we all came to look forward to (even me!) and that is our literary Advent calendar. Through my kids’ childhoods, we’ve tried various countdowns-Advent calendars and Jesse trees and the like-that just never clicked for our family. This year many readers are clinging to the comforts of home and making plans for a cozy holiday season, and with that in mind, today I’m sharing a tried and true family Christmas countdown plan.

Christmas day in the morning by pearl s buck