Have you ever heard of a book advent? I think I first heard about it on Pinterest and thought it would be fun to do with the children. Instead of a tacky Advent calendar with cheap chocolate, we’ll be unwrapping a Christmas book every day of December leading up to Christmas Day. This way we will get to spend more time reading together, which is something we all love, and some time each day to enjoy the festive season.
The hard part has been finding the books. 24 Christmas-themed books can be difficult. I really wanted to buy second hand and I’m pleased to say I managed it! I’ve been stalking my local charity shops and fortunately my local Oxfam Bookshop came up trumps with a whole section of Christmas books for children in perfect condition. I’ve now amassed 24 different books which should appeal to the toddler and baby, a real mixture of Christmas classics and more recent classics too.
I thought I’d share my selection:
Mr Christmas by Roger Hargreaves; The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore; Aliens Love Panta Claus by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort; The Snowman by Raymond Briggs; How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss; Mrs Christmas by Penny Ives; The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg; My First Story of Christmas by Tim Dowley; Father Christmas Needs A Wee by Nicholas Allan; That’s Not My Snowman by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells; Usborne Very First Words Christmas; That’s Not My Reindeer by by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells; Usborne Sparkly Touchy-feely Father Christmas by by Fiona Watt and Rebecca Finn; Bless You Santa by Julie Sykes and Tim Warnes; The Grufalo’s Child by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler; Jingle Bell Reindeer; Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs; Santa Christmas with flaps and a sparkly surprise ending; The Gingerbread Man; Mr Men Meet Father Christmas by Roger Hargreaves; Snowy Tracks Thomas & Friends; Everything’s Rosie The Last Snowball; and Dear Santa by Rob Campbell. Oops, just realised I’m short by one, any suggestions?
Here’s my daughter discovering the box of books when my back was turned!
She’ll have to be patient as the next step is to wrap them all so I’m very pleased they’re all flat! Then we’ll put them under the tree and read them randomly.
Not heard of this idea and think it is a fabulous one so thanks for sharing.
I wish I could claim it was my own idea 🙂
What a wonderful idea! Each year I make Advent calendar with matches boxes. I fill them with something cute/funny/practical (its not easy to find 24 different things that fit into a box of matches!) and give it to someone who has been a good friend for me throughout this year…:)
I’m going to make an advent calendar out of boxes too this year! I just need to find something to put in them for my son.
I love this idea. I think I may struggle to find 24 Christmas books ready for this year but I’m definitely going to try to do it next year.
I love the idea of a book advent.
What a fab idea!
I had heard of this…I think also via Pinterest! We have a book box which comes down from the attic on the 1st December every year but I think this year I will wrap them up too! My eldest three have seen the books so many times over the years that I think this will add a little frisson of excitement and novelty to the proceedings! Thanks so much for linking up to Festive Friday, I hope you’ll come back again!
I absolutely love this idea and have started building up our books for this year to start it off.
Thank you so much for linking up to Tuesday Tots and letting you know that I will be featuring this post this week over on Rainy Day Mum
What a lovely idea – my kids love reading too and at least half of their Christmas presents are books