This weekend I've been wrapping books! Not because I'm a super-organised Mummy who's busy finishing up my present wrapping before December arrives - I think I'd miss the last minute wrapping frenzy playing that well-known Christmas Eve game "do we have enough wrap and tape?"! No, I'm preparing for one of my favourite pre-Christmas activities.......
Each year, I wrap 24 Christmas and Winter themed books, number them from 1 to 24 and we begin a special month of Advent Bedtime Story Calendar - with the stories getting more and more Christmassy as the month progresses.
I don't buy 24 new books each year! There are some that are fast becoming classics in our house and then each year I replace 3 or 4 with new stories that match C's current level. After Christmas the books get packed away with the decorations so they are always fresh when they come out the next year.
Here's this year's list - in no particular order:
- How The Grinch Stole Christmas - Dr Seuss
- The Best Christmas Present in the World - Michael Morpurgo
- Mr Snow - Roger Hargreaves
- Santa is Coming to My House - Steve Smallman
- The Snow Bear - Miriam Moss
- Stick Man - Julia Donaldson
- Father Christmas Needs a Wee - Nicholas Allan
- Drummer Boy - Loren Long
- The Dinosaur that Pooped Christmas - Tom Fletcher & Dougie Poynter (yes, the boys from McFly!)
- Bear Stays up for Christmas - Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman (one of my favourites - similar story to last year's John Lewis ad)
- Mog's Christmas - Judith Kerr
- The Little Fir Tree - Margaret Wise Brown
- Albert Le Blanc - Nick Butterworth
- Little Rabbit's Christmas - Harry Horse
- The First Snow - M. Christina Butler
- The Smiley Snowman - M. Christina Butler
- One Winter's Day - M. Christina Butler
- One Snowy Night - Nick Butterworth
- Dear Father Christmas - Alan Durant
- Snowflakes - Cerrie Burnell
- How Many Sleeps til Christmas - Mark Sperring
- The Twelve Prayers of Christmas - Candy Chand
- The Polar Express - Chris Van Allsberg
- The First Christmas - Jan Pienkowski (we have several variations on this story but Jan's fabulous use of silhouette make this my favourite - he illustrated many of my favourite books as a child)
We really enjoy it, although he's only 5 he's already got some real favourites and his face lights up when he opens them :-) x
ReplyDeleteI think this is the best thing i've read all day so I'm going to leave it there and go to bed. What a beautiful idea... your son is very lucky! What age was your son when you started? Might put it on my list of things to do next year...he'll be three and a half xx #coolmumclub
ReplyDeleteAww thanks Lucy! He's a September baby so we started the Christmas after he was 1 - the first year I borrowed quite a few from the local library, I already had a few of the classics as I'm such a Christmas-a-holic! I think I bought half a dozen that year, some new and some from charity shops, then I just gradually built up the collection over that next year as you can buy/order Christmas books all year. Now, when we get the book box out in November, he picks 3-4 that he'd like to send to another child this year, and I then buy 3-4 new ones to replace them. xx
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