Christmas Books To Celebrate the Season

We’ve decked our halls and trimmed our trees. Our large blue wooden box of Christmas books sits stuffed to the brim and many titles have already passed through little hands.

We add to our Christmas book collection each year and develop new favorites as we revisit old friends. Traditionally our family celebrates the season at a slow pace as much as possible. Several years ago I wrote about 5 Helpful Principles Every Type A Woman Needs to Embrace and I’ve since tried to abide by them. With my husband working in the ministry the Christmas calendar has the potential to quickly fill up with church events alone so we have traditions that we maintain in our home but not always around town. The first and foremost tradition is reading wonderful books!

Christ is the central focus of Christmas in our home and here are the books we read to aid us with that intention:

Most of the books we read embody the spirit of Christmas without telling the Christmas story explicitly. There are many many of these but here are our favorites:

There are so many 12 Days of Christmas books that I don’t have a strong favorite at this point. In fact I have five or six I want to try out this Christmas and decide which one I love the most. Here is another cute edition by Hilary Knight:

While Santa doesn’t deliver presents to our house (read more here), we have a few which incorporate St. Nicholas and Santa Claus. Here are some that we would recommend checking out at your local library or adding to your collection:

Santa Mouse may be the cutest mouse you will ever meet!

Don’t you love a wonderful Christmas story? The kind that offers peace, hope, and good will towards men?  Me too! I reread A Christmas Carol every year and typically I Saw Three Ships and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Following is a list of my 16 most cherished Christmas chapter books to read aloud or individually. Please share your favorites in the comments and feel free to ask me any questions that you have.


 I have a few that I’ve introduced to at least one of my children and plan to introduce to each of them this year:

 The Little Match Girl made an impression on me when I was a child. It is one that I haven’t shared with my children but plan on doing so this Christmas. I think this will open the door for rich conversations around our responsibility to look for ways to help others. 

Finally, I’ve posted here about Christmas books that have corresponding movies. Check out the list and see if there are any of your favorites!

Merry Christmas to you and yours. May your days awaiting the celebration of Christ’s birth draw you nearer to the heart of God.

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If I Could Give You One Gift It Would Be a Library Card

One of the great things about being a parent is that you get to catch up on all the books you missed in your own childhood!

~Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child’s Heart.

library fun

Next month I am throwing a favorite things party for our homeschool community. At this party, each woman is to bring one of her favorite things to share with five other women. My husband wittingly quipped, Are you giving five library cards? What a fabulous idea! If I could give each person a library card I would–but, alas, an address and phone number is necessary for each account!

This summer we have participated in the Give Your Child the World Reading Challenge with Jamie Martin of Simple Homeschool and Sarah Mackenzie of the Read Aloud Revival Podcast. In the challenge, we read wonderful literature based on different countries and regions around the world every week for eight weeks. Each book we selected came from Jamie’s beautiful new book baby, Give Your Child the World. A thorough list of books for students of all ages broken down by world-region.

My favorite time of day with each of our three children, and as a family, is the multiple times we sit and read aloud together. There is something about the shared story, vocabulary, and experiences that the pages of good books provide.

It is not necessary to have monetary means to travel the globe or walk in another man’s shoes. All we really need is a library card and a good list to guide us. This summer I spent my many hours reading several books about books. It may be a bit of an overkill that I take four books to my local library each week, several times a week, to guide my family’s reading selection. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I want to share a list of books to help guide your family’s reading choices and direct your heart and mind to ponder the importance of reading together as a family to shape the character of your children and generations to come.  These books are rich and make wonderful additions to any home library.


Based on my review of each of the book lists, I would suggest starting with Honey for a Child’s Heart and Give Your Child the World. They help shape our parent hearts and present the information in an easy-to-read format. Utilizing these booklist books, we have chosen several new family favorites this summer; including these three:

What are your favorite books that you have read together as a family this summer? Where do you turn to help make your book selections? I would love to hear your ideas!

May the books be plenty and the hours spent together engrossed in a wonderful story be multiplied,

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