Advent begins just one week from Sunday!
The length of Advent always varies from 22-28 days, beginning with the Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle (November 30th) and embracing four Sundays. The first day of Advent can fall as early as November 27th or as late as December 3rd. This year Advent begins on December 1st. I love it when that happens!
Every Advent our family counts down the days until Christmas with picture books, Advent Calendars, and the Jesse Tree. Years ago, when we didn’t have enough Christmas themed picture books to wrap one for each day of Advent, I would check some Christmas books out from the library just before Advent began, using Christmas Mosaic as a guide. We have added many books to our home library since then, giving one Christmas themed book to each of our children on the feast of St. Nicholas, and our collection has definitely grown. (You can find this year’s St. Nick books here!)
In the past I have filled our Advent basket with Christmas Mosaic titles and our children’s 35 Favorite Christmas Picture Books. One year I picked twenty-six of MY favorites (although I still find new favorites to add to my list each year!) and one year I left the choosing up to my husband and our oldest daughter. We’ve had great lists the last two years too: 2017 and 2018.
I currently keep all of our Christmas picture books on the bottom two shelves of a corner bookshelf upstairs… The other night I went up there and pulled out a whole bunch of my favorites. I sorted through them all, removing the ones I wrapped and read to our children last Advent (with the exception of a few annual favorites including The Donkey’s Dream, The Miracle of St. Nicholas and Bambinelli Sunday) and that’s how I came up with this year’s list!
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December 1 – 1st Sunday of Advent: Waiting for Christmas: A Story About the Advent Calendar – set up Advent Calendars and Jesse Tree
December 2: Christmas Farm
December 3: Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree
December 4: Kristoph and the First Christmas Tree
December 5: The Legend of St. Nicholas – write letters to Christ Child/Saint Nicholas, bake Speculaas or St. Nicholas Cookies, and decorate St. Nicholas Chocolate Coins to give to others
December 6 – St. Nicholas: St. Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins
December 7 – St. Ambrose: The Attic Saint – (New Release… Coming soon!) Bake a Honeycomb Cake, decorate Christmas Candles
December 8 – Immaculate Conception and 2nd Sunday of Advent: Apple Tree Christmas
December 9: A Wish to be a Christmas Tree
December 10: The Bears’ Christmas Surprise (Back in print!! Find this year’s reprint here!)
December 11: The Christmas Cobwebs
December 12 – Hanna’s Christmas – prepare for tomorrow’s feast day
December 13 – Santa Lucia Day: Lucia Saint of Light
December 14: Bambinelli Sunday (this year we’ll read it on the eve of Bambinelli Sunday)
December 15 – 3rd Sunday of Advent/Gaudete Sunday: The Christmas Cookie Sprinkle Snitcher
December 16: Nine Days to Christmas: A Story of Mexico
December 17 – O Sapientia: The Miracle of St. Nicholas
December 18 – O Adonai: The Donkey’s Dream *Catholic Mosaic – pray Litany of Mary from which the names of Mary used in this book were taken
December 19 – O Radix Jesse: My Wonderful Christmas Tree
December 20 – O Clavis David: Silent Night: The wonderful story of the beloved Christmas carol
December 21 – O Oriens: Bethlehem (Catholic Edition)
December 22 – 4th Sunday of Advent – O Rex Gentium: Small Camel Follows the Star
December 23 – O Emmanuel: The First Christmas (Brand new! O Antiphon gift for this year.)
December 24 – Vigil of Christmas: There Was No Snow on Christmas Eve
About four or five years ago I switched to brown paper along with purple and pink ribbon, instead of the original purple and pink wrapping paper I would use years ago… This year I’m reusing brown paper bags along with the ribbons I reuse every year and our homemade labels!
As always, we’ll unwrap and read one book each night during Advent, following our family rosary. The rest of our book collection will be placed in additional baskets for the kids to read whenever they’d like during the seasons of Advent and Christmas.
If you’d like to use my little labels too, you can download my Advent Book Basket Labels for 2019 over at Dropbox.
(Note: I made two versions this year: Extraordinary Form or Novus Ordo…The difference is that the feast of the Immaculate Conception is transferred to the 9th on the New Calendar and remains on the 8th for Extraordinary Form. I included the Ember Days on both sets.)
I’m still waiting for The Attic Saint to arrive and I’m also saving the new brand new book I ordered for December 23rd to wrap along with this year’s O Antiphon gifts for O Emmanuel. It’s a really cute book with rhyming text, but not quite as cute as our brand new baby. We are all looking forward to having everyone home again for her First Christmas!
.: ADVENT BOOK BASKET GIVEAWAY :.
Prize #1: Advent Coloring Book, Holy Heroes: The Childhood of Jesus Coloring Book, Celebrating Advent with the Jesse Tree, Celebrating Christmas, Brother Francis O Holy Night DVD, Brother Francis The Christmas Pageant that Almost Wasn’t Storybook, The Three Gifts of Christmas with Audio CD, Novena for Christmas Magnetic Bookmark, and Numbering My Days: How the Liturgical Calendar Rearranged My Life sponsored by Sacred Heart Books and Gifts (value over $65.00)
Congratulations, Emily!
“Thank you for your wonderful ideas!”
Prize #2: Gifts: Visible and Invisible, Saint Rudolph and the Reindeer, The Forgotten Christmas Saint: St. Anastasia, Saint Magnus, the Last Vikikng, and My Prayer Journal
sponsored by author Susan Peek (value $61.79)
Congratulations, Piper!“Thank you for your list. I reference it every year”
Prize #3: The Rosary for Little Ones
and Divine Mercy for Little Ones
sponsored by author Kimberly Fries (value $25.98)
Congratulations, Maria!
“I love your blog! So inspiring. Thank you for your gentle, loving example of motherhood.”
Prize #4: Digital Copy of Awaiting the Messiah: A Family Advent Journey with Handel’s Messiah sponsored by Barefoot Abbey (value $15.00)
Congratulations, Gian!
“Look like lovely books. Thanks for sharing!”
Enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter box below
For additional Christmas book suggestions you can find some of our lists in the archives:
You can find the rest of our booklists here.
P.S. There is still time to enter the St. Nicholas Giveaway!
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