An Advent “Calendar” of Christmas Books

Hilda Rodgers
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Basket of books wrapped in Christmas themed paper.

Do you have Christmas books that your children enjoy reading at Christmas?  Do you sometimes run out of time to read them and pack them away for the following year unread?  Do your kids enjoy opening presents?  {OK, silly question!}

When my kids were little we had lots of Christmas books that they enjoyed reading together, but sometimes those books got overshadowed by all the other activities at Christmas.  I always felt sad packing away the unread ones, but I never wanted to give them away because I was determined to make sure that “next Christmas we’ll make time to read them!”

I knew I needed to organize a way to ensure that we actually made that time.  Here’s what I did to solve this problem and we enjoyed every single one of our Christmas books for many years!

I wrapped up each of our children’s Christmas books and put them all in a basket.  Each night before bed the kids chose one book to unwrap and read together.

Basket of books wrapped in Christmas themed paper.

My daughter loved it!  She had so much fun opening a “present” each night.  It was surprise every evening which book it would be and it made reading a lot of fun.

Child looking at wrapped books.

My son joined in for some of the books, but was getting a bit old for a few of them so he read other books instead.  Over the years, as my kids aged we gave away a few of the more childish books and added a few new ones that they both enjoyed, including some chapter books where we read a chapter each evening. But many of the books were classics and they both looked forward to them every year 🙂

Child unwrapping a book.

I kept the basket of books at the end of the hallway between the kids’ bedroom doors.  That made it convenient for bedtime reading.  Once a book was read, it was put back in the basket and was available to be read any other time.

As the month progressed, it was easy to see how much closer we were getting to Christmas by how many books were opened and how many remained wrapped.  It was a fun way to anticipate Christmas together.

It was worth the time spent wrapping the books, and the expense of the paper (I just used cheap stuff for this) to be able to have the time together reading Christmas books.

I know I could have just put the books in a basket without wrapping them, but then I know the favourite books would be chosen first and the books left over as the month went on wouldn’t seem as exciting.  I didn’t want my kids to lose interest in reading these Christmas books, and wrapping them made it a fun little mystery every night. 

Basket of books wrapped in Christmas themed paper.

These are some of the books we used in no particular order (affiliate links):

There are so many great Christmas books out there!  If you don’t own 24 of them, you could borrow some from your local library and number the books you wrap so you can read and return them before they’re due or ask friends or family if they have some you can borrow.

For older children, you can use chapter books and read a chapter a night.  {That would mean fewer books which would be less wrapping!}

Do you remember the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever?  I think the first time I ever heard it was around grade 3 when my teacher read it to our class at school. My kids LOVED that one too!

I hope this post inspires you to read Christmas books with your kids this year!  Whether you wrap them up like this or not, Christmas is a great time to read together.

An advent calendar of Christmas books, a basket of books wrapped in Christmas themed paper.

How have you used organizing to solve a problem?  Have you ever wrapped books to read through advent?  What are your favourite Christmas books? 

If you need help decluttering or organizing, contact me for in-person organizing services in the Mississauga area, or virtual organizing services anywhere else.

Happy organizing!


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