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For years, I’ve given my kids Christmas books on Christmas eve with their Christmas pajamas. This was a way to build our library of our favorite Christmas books – although it took a several years to collect them all. (After Christmas is a great time to pick them up on sale and save them for the next year, or years! 😉 Some were purchased because of our traditions growing up. Others had beautiful illustrations. A friend from college, Brandon Dorman, is an illustrator and several in our collection are his works of art. Some books are based on Jesus Christ and tell of his birth and others are fun playful stories for young children. One book, Twas the Night Before Christmas, is reserved for Christmas eve and has the most creative pop up pages I’ve seen. I have many favorites for different reasons.
The books sit on a shelf in the living room and I find them left on the couches most every day after the kids have read through them. Some nights we read together as a family and some nights the kids read them to each other. But usually by the time Christmas rolls around we’ve gone through most of them. Here’s what’s sitting on our shelf now:
Snowmen at Christmas
Christmas Oranges
The Mansion
The Miracle of the Wooden Shoes
A Christmas Dress for Ellen
Christmas Bell for Anya
Christmas Day in the Morning
Llama Llama Holiday Drama
Forgotten Carols
The Christmas Train
The Tale of Three Trees
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
Polar Express
The Christmas Candle
The Gift of the Magi
Drummer Boy
C is for Christmas
The First Christmas
The Visit
Great Joy
The Christmas Sweater
Snow Angels
Christmas Carol
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Olive, the Other Reindeer
Twelve Days of Christmas
Twas the Night Before Christmas
Christmas Sweater – novel
Secret Santa
Christmas Jars
Christmas Parade
Beyond Bethlehem
A Christmas Story
One of my thin places is sitting in our living room after the kids go to bed with all the lights off but the tree, blanket across my lap, reading from one of these books. And after Christmas, they go back in the box and don’t make an appearance for 11 months, so every Christmas the story feels new again.
I love learning of other people’s collections as well – I’m always willing to add to the library!
Mr Willowby’s Christmas tree is one of our favorites. It’s even better if you can find an old publication with the illustrations in black and green.
Just added it to my Amazon cart but it looks like it’s a newer version with more colorful illustrations.
Do you have any Jan Brett books? She has Christmas themed books, as well as just winter themed ones. The stories are adorable, but the best part is the illustrations! My go-to children’s gifts at Christmas are her books.
I know we have one of Brett’s books because I remember the beautiful reindeer illustrations – yet it’s not in our stack, I’ll have to look through the playroom bookcase and locate it. The illustrations are beautiful in those books.
I Believe in Santa Claus is a touching book, espeically for when someone tells your kids santa isnt real. I starts out listing all these great characteristics Santa has and the second half of the book is pointing out similar characteristics in Christ. https://www.amazon.com/Believe-Santa-Claus-Diane-Adamson/dp/0967357101/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482262385&sr=8-1&keywords=i+believe+in+santa+claus
My sister-in-law was just talking to me about that book and I hadn’t heard about it before then. I added it to my cart!
We love the book December. The true meaning of Christmas. Written by Eve Bunting with beautiful illustrations. It will make you cry at the generous heart of those who have little.
https://www.amazon.com/December-Eve-Bunting/dp/0152024220
I’ve never heard of that book – I’ll look it up and get it ordered!
A Night Without Darkness is a really cute one about the Nephite Christmas story
It is more of an adult book, however Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher is a favorite read of mine for December.