Library Advent

Last year, I tried something I read about on Pinterest - a library Advent calendar. Each night of December leading up to Christmas, the kids open a wrapped book. The book can be anything, but I chose books that were mostly Christmas or winter-themed, with a few of our favorites thrown in. This year, my selection is as follows:

This year, since I had more than a few weeks to prepare, I collected all year. I also bought a few new books from the Scholastic book order that came home with Brother. We are not Santa people, but we do treat Santa like other fictional characters in our household, so we do have a few Santa books. However, most of our Christmas books focus on the actual story of Christmas - Jesus. The books in the pile above are arranged so that the books in the front will be first and the books in the back will be last. The last week's worth of books are all about Jesus.

Last weekend, I got them all wrapped, and tomorrow night we will open our first book!

We also have another special Christmas count-down tradition at our house. Last year, I saw this picture on Pinterest and asked my mom if she could make something like it:

Challenge accepted...and guess what? Her's is WAY better than the Pinterest version!

So every night, we move the marker closer and closer to Bethlehem, until, on Christmas morning, it finally arrives. We bring out Baby Jesus and stick him in the manger. And then we read our last Christmas book, which is all about that day!