Christmas Advent book calender

[MissPepper8]

Is anyone doing this? Basically 24 (or 25) different Christmas themed stories instead of chocolate/toy calenders.

We have Stick man, Night before Christmas, Grinch, Velveteen rabbit already.

I'm deciding on whether I buy 10 and my sister buys 10 and we swap what I've collected half way through or The Works and The book people have loads of cheap £10/20 Christmas book deals anyway.

I do this with my dc and have done since oldest was 2, she's now 7. We wrapped 24 books the first year and they took it in turns to choose one. Favourites were saved for the following year (about 15) and the rest donated. Each year we do the same so some are updated and some old favourites. The dc love having the big pile to choose from and it's a nice wind down in the evening :-)

Oh and we look in charity shops for a lot of ours.

I love books but I think 25 in a month is too many. I wouldn't be able to think of that many (half decent) books with a Christmas theme.

We bought a set of 20 Christmas books from the works and then added a few extras.

Oh I think this is a great idea and also had a look:

www.theworks.co.uk/p/christmas-books/christmas-tales---10-kids-picture-books-bundle/9781788816175

I got the disney one from aldi last year and going to use it for the next few years. Think it was only £10 and you get 24 books

@RubbingHimSweetly Oh charity shops is a good idea! I'll have to go have a look near the time.

And wrapping them too, DS is only 2, I think he'd be a bit overwhelmed if he had the choice (usually picks 3 for bedtime lol).

@BeanBag7 Yeah it is alot I guess this is why I thought I'd do half with my sister and do a swap once we've both read our ones.

I did think aswell for babies and little ones to pick up the "That's not my Santa/reindeer" touch and feel books as DS still likes these and my neice.

We do this only we mostly reuse the same books every year. I just put them away in January and bring them back out in December. I don't wrap them though, just one under the tree before I go to bed. We read certain ones on certain days such as one about St Nicholas on his feast day, one about the nativity on Christmas Morning and the Jolly Christmas postman on the day we post our christmas cards etc.

There are a lot of Christmas themed children's books.

I sort of do this.

I did try when my dc were a lot younger, but found that the books all merged into one after a while.

I now intersperse some well chosen, quality (hopefully!) or coveted (eg character books, like topsy and Tim, or Maisy) throughout advent.

My middle dc (now aged 12) loves it - she tends to get a book a week in advent, as there’s no way even she (a confirmed bookworm!) would manage a chapter book each day . She loved The Night I Met Father Christmas last year - really raved about it.

In fact, my eldest is the only one who I could still do it for properly (age 15, but with special needs so still reading picture books), but while she enjoys the books, she’d much rather have chocolate each day and a book occasionally than a whole month of books!

My youngest (7) enjoyed a mix of simpler picture books and bigger books like the Chistmasaurus last year - it can be lovely to have a longer book on the go and read a chapter each night.

I did this for my dc 5 years ago, it was one of my favourite advent themes!

I did get 10 from the works, I also got a couple of activity/colouring books.

I then got a few nicer/classic books, including the two Michael Morpugo ones (on angel wings and the best Christmas present, I think), the empty stocking, by Richard Curtis - which is my favourite Christmas book and the jolly Christmas postman amongst others.

DH wasn’t impressed with the idea tbh, but now 5 years on, we still get the books out at Christmas, and enjoy reading them together.

This started a tradition of me doing a bit more during advent, since then we’ve had a craft advent, a giving and receiving advent, where we had lots of acts of kindness, such as making a bird feeder, taking old blankets to the dogs trust, writing a letter etc; an activity advent and a quiz one.

We do this, I used the same books each year. The first year I bought about 5 books and topped them up from the library. Each year I add new books that have been bought over the year and now 8 years in we don't really need to top up with library books any more.
I don't wrap them they just go in the advent book box and children choose them. Father christmas needs a wee is a favourite.
My eldest is 8 and so reads chapter books, he gets given one on 1st December. Last year it was a boy named Christmas, this year he's getting the girl who saved Christmas.

Ah reading all these comments are really nice :).

Think it's something I'm definitely going to do this year, DS is obsessed with books so it'll be a lovely idea to recycle the books a bit.

since then we’ve had a craft advent, a giving and receiving advent, where we had lots of acts of kindness, such as making a bird feeder, taking old blankets to the dogs trust, writing a letter etc; an activity advent and a quiz

Ah that's really nice, I'd like to start things like this with him when he gets a bit bigger but we're big on crafts right now. Hobbycraft does a 1000 piece craft set for £5 and bits and pieces like money box painting x

The craft one was lovely, I raided the works and £1 shops, plus some stuff from Baker Ross, we made decorations to give as gifts, a pack of colour in Christmas cards took up a few days!

Have fun with the book advent, it’s definitely something that will last beyond just this Christmas 😊

I've just got my Book People catalogue and they have 10 Christmas books for £12.99.
It's called "Fantastic Christmas Favourites Collection". Might be worth a look, even just for inspiration

I turned the catalogue page and they also have the "I love Christmas" collection, the "Christmas Wishes" collection and "Cosy Christmas" collection. You'll be spoilt for choice

How funny beanbag I just came on to post the same thing!

Ah see there's a catalogue?? How can I get one 😂😂

Yeah i think that's my best bet, I'm a little bit excited to get started now :). We're due DC2 in March so it'll something we can keep doing :)

I would try to do a book swap. Buying 25 books is a lot I'd rather put that towards a Christmas present. I think this adds more pressure on parents to spend more, and make kids less appreciative.

I did a reverse calender. Have a box and every day they add something for a food bank.

@june2007 The food bank is a really lovely idea, we did the shoe box for children last year but thats a lovely idea.

The books for me would be a Christmas gift in a sense. We don't plan on doing lots of gifts for Christmas this year, as DS has a lot of toys now and I'm due March so were also buying for new baby :).

We did this when DD was younger, we went to the library once a week to spend time seeing what christmassy/winter books we could find. She really enjoyed it.

Now we have more detailed books so we have a little collection of those to read in the run up instead as a book everyday just isn't feasible.

I also printed a month's worth of Christmas colouring sheets once which went down well too :)

We read one (or more) of Tolkein's father Christmas letters each day of advent. He wrote them to his children to discover on Christmas morning and they are full of tales of the clumsy polar bear and pesky goblins.

This is such a great idea. 25 in a month is absolutely not too many, they'd get at least one story a night anyway.

I have a Christmas book hamper instead of the advent calendar and I top it up every Christmas. I've got books from charity shops, ebay, pound land and book shops over the years. And I put the books away after Christmas so ds has the excitement of reading them at Christmas. He is allowed to keep his favourite one out and reads it throughout the year

I guess it depends how you do it, if you reuse old books, then thats one thing. But 25 new ones each year?