Somewhere in time, we began clothing our favorite Christmas books with bright, cheery wrapping paper.
What started out as a neat idea is now a locked-in tradition at our house: We read our way to Christmas Day!
Bedtime stories take on new luster as a fresh book is unveiled each night. Daddy begins to read words that we have memorized we have never heard before.
Our pile of books grows gradually smaller…and soon it’s Christmas Day!
Now that our tradition has matured, I spend the year looking for new and used Christmas books to add to our collection. Some are different renditions of the account of Christ’s birth. Some are secular stories and Christmas classics. Last year I got some great deals on Christmas books after Christmas, and tucked them away for….now! So this year, a good half of our Christmas book pile are “new to us” and never before seen by Small Son and Tiny Daughter.
What reaping of the seeds of kindness is seen as the young braves argue about who gets to open the book peacefully take turns with the pleasure of opening a book! And oh, how their eyes sparkle each night as they see the cover!
There is a special twist to our fun tradition…..
On Christmas Day, we will open the Bible and read our Saviour’s story.
This Book is definitely a special climax to 25 days of Christmas blessings!
Guess what? You still have time to wrap up your Christmas books and start a new Christmas activity in your family. It’s ok if you don’t have 25 books…just wrap up what you have. That’s how we started, and I love watching our collection grow.
Does your family count down to Christmas in a special way? How did your tradition get started? Share in the comments and link to your blog if you like!
With Grace,
Leah
I love this tradition. Might do this with D this year as he is just starting to become fascinated with being “read to” not just looking at books. =) I love traditions. They’re ‘making memory moments’. Our family ALWAYS watched Scrooge on Christmas Eve (the old, black and white version with Alistair Simms). Now, we watch the Muppets Christmas Carol (not quite as scary, lol). Can’t wait to start some advent traditions with Darius. I have a lot of ideas for when he’s a bit older.
Yes, the traditions become even more fun as the children grow. Then THEY start reminding US of things we’ve done in the past! 🙂
This is such a neat idea! I’m going to try this next year when Ezra has more appreciation for books.
Do you wrap the Bible too?
Yes, we wrap the Bible- an extra one that’s sitting around. 🙂
this is a great tradition! If I had my nieces more I would do it with them – but I don’t think I could read 6 book once a week 🙂
Haha…yeah, you’d have Christmas book overload probably. 🙂 If you know in advance how many days you have them, you could just wrap that number.
[…] I’m sitting here with aching knees because I’ve just spent the last hour on the floor wrapping up 18 Christmas books for my son. We are doing a different kind of “advent Calendar” by reading our way to Christmas. […]
[…] individually wrapping all of the Christmas books we will read each day {an idea which we stole from Leah over at Embracing Grace} and instead just enjoying reading […]