A couple weeks ago I pulled out all of our Christmas picture books and ordered a few new ones to add to our collection this year! My plan was to wrap them up and read one each day during the Advent and Christmas season. Well, I never did have a chance to find purple paper and get them all wrapped, but we have been reading one each day — following our Jesse Tree Bible Readings — and I finally have them all listed with the date for when we will be reading each one. Most of the books have study guides in either Christmas Mosaic, An Illustrated Book Study for Advent and Christmas
Here’s our list:
November 30 (First Sunday of Advent) ~ Waiting for Christmas: A Story about the Advent Calendar (Traditions of Faith from Around the World)
December 1 ~ The Little Fir Tree
December 2 ~ The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey with CD: Gift Edition
December 3 ~ The Christmas Cobwebs
December 4 ~ Cobweb Christmas: The Tradition of Tinsel
December 5 ~ The Miracle of Saint Nicholas
December 6 ~ The Legend of Saint Nicholas
December 7 (Feast of St. Ambrose) ~ The Christmas Candle
December 8 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) ~ Good King Wenceslas
December 9 ~ Shoemaker Martin
December 10 (Feast of Our Lady of Loreto) ~ A Small Miracle
December 11 ~ The Clown of God
December 12 (Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe)~ The Lady of Guadalupe
December 13 (Feast of St. Lucy) ~ Hanna’s Christmas
December 14 ~ The Christmas Promise
December 15 ~ One Christmas Dawn
December 16 ~ The Night of Las Posadas
December 17 ~ Night Tree
December 18 ~ An Orange for Frankie
December 19 (O Antiphon: “O Flower”) ~ The Legend of the Poinsettia
December 20 ~ Santa’s Favorite Story
December 21 ~ Mortimer’s Christmas Manger
December 22 ~ The Christmas Bird
December 23 ~ The Donkey’s Dream
December 24 (Christmas Eve) ~ On Christmas Eve
December 25 (Christmas Day) ~ The Very First Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas:
Twelve Days of Christmas Stained Glass Coloring Book
December 26 (Feast of St. Stephen) ~ Stephen’s Feast
December 27 (Feast of St. John the Apostle) ~ Through the Eyes of John
December 28 (Feast of the Holy Innocents) ~ The Little Match Girl
December 29 ~ Bright Christmas: An Angel Remembers
December 30 ~ The Twelve Days of Christmas
December 31 ~ Mary: The Mother of Jesus
January 1 (Feast of the Circumcision and Mary, Mother of God) ~ Mary, Mother of Jesus
January 2 ~ The Christmas Story Board Book
January 3 ~ The First Christmas
January 4 ~ We Three Kings
January 5 ~ The Last Straw
January 6 (Feast of Epiphany) ~ The Story of the Three Wise Kings
Family Advent Read-a-loud with Daddy: The Trees Kneel at Christmas
I also have a basket with Board Books for our littlest ones including:
- B Is for Bethlehem: A Christmas Alphabet Board Book
- Who Is Coming to Our House?
- Christmas in the Manger
- The Legend Of The Three Trees – Board Book
- Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend
- Spot’s Christmas
- ABC is for Christmas (A Little Golden Book)
- Touch and Feel Baby Jesus Is Born
I am planning on posting some upcoming feast day plans as well as some recipes over at Catholic Cuisine, but I am not promising anything… (My blogging has been rather sporadic lately…) In case I don’t, I did post a few feast day ideas last year and I added the link (titled On the Calendar) to my sidebar for the next few weeks. Our plans are pretty much the same as last year with a few new additions which I am hoping to squeeze in, as usual! 🙂
You know, looking through (and listing out) ALL those Christmas picture books has me wanting to have another Cocoa, Cookies, Crafts, and Christmas Stories party! It was so fun seeing everyone else’s favorite Christmas books! In fact, if you’d like, I’d love for you to tell me the name (or about) YOUR family’s favorite Christmas picture book, so please feel free to leave it in the comments. God Bless!
My all time favorite is the Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey. The kids always watch me to see when I’m going to start crying, in which I never disappoint. I love the kindness of the widow and the curiousity and pure faith of the child and the change in Mr Gloomy.
We also love to play “The Friendly Beasts” by Garth Brooks and follow along with the book by Tomie DePala sp?
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey is a favorite here too! I was so excited to see that our library has a DVD version of it this year, which I requested recently. 🙂
I had never heard that song by Garth Brooks before! I am listening to it on You Tube right now… It’s great! I will have to play it for my kiddos this year. Thanks!
Great list. I just ordered the Christmas Mosaic along with a few other things. I’ll probably have to wait until next year to implement it, though. 🙁 I do have a lot of those books to read to the kids, minus the lesson plans. I guess I’ll have a whole year to plan.
Holy cow! I’m jealous of your collection! Haha. Just kidding. Fortunately, I was able to get about 30 Advent/Christmas books from the library.
Aimee
Wow, Jessica, what a great list of books! We own a few of these, have read a few others, and are looking forward to reading a few new ones thanks to your list!
~Angela
This post had to take forever with all those links! You are amazing!
Thank you for such a wonderful list of books. I am very excited to order a few each year. The 12 days after Christmas Book suggestions are great!
Take Care and God Bless.
What an awesome post, Jessica! You are such an INSPIRATION!
God Bless
We love The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston… beautiful illustrations. We also love the Chrsitmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.
I love your posts!!! One Baby Jesus by Patricia A. Pingry is a fun one with the littles…changes 12 Days of Christmas to nativity things. We put our Christ Candle in the center of our Advent wreath hidden under a "mantle".