Alright folks. It's the day after Thanksgiving, so I am in "go" mode for Christmas!
Do you have that silly rule about not listening to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving? I do! Today I can listen to Christmas music guilt-free!
How do you look forward to Christmas? We have several Christmas advent calendars:
* We have the Christmas tree countdown that I shared last year.
* We also have the classic felt Christmas tree calendar. We will be pulling a felt object out of the calendar each day and pinning it on the tree!
* Of course we are continuing the Santa Beard tradition by adding cotton balls to Santa's beard every day until Christmas.
* Last week, I also shared this Super Saturday story book binder we made at my ward's Super Saturday. We will use this as our family scripture study, sharing a scripture, song, and special Christmas story every day until Christmas. (By the way, I have received tons of e-mails requesting that I share this with you. I love sharing ideas with you, but I don't feel right about sharing someone else's work. I simply made the binder cover in my class--the content of the binder was created by someone else. Feel free to take this idea and make it your own!)
* Just like last year, Little Man is SO excited for our Christmas Book Advent. I am sure many of you do this very same thing!
Every day during the month of December, Little Man will find a book wrapped up underneath the Christmas tree. I don't know about you, but I LOVE Christmas books. I can't wait to share some of my favorites with Little Man. So several days ago, we wrapped up all of our books so they're all ready to go! I combined several of my favorite books from our own storybook library along with a few books we'll be checking out from the local library.
Here are some of the books that we'll be reading this year:
Mickey's Christmas Carol
Merry Christmas, Curious George
The First Night
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies
Santa's Toy Shop
Gingerbread Man
Here Comes Santa Claus
Mortimer's Christmas Manger
Little Robin's Christmas
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree
The Baker's Dozen
Franklin's Christmas Gift
Jingle Bells
Frosty the Snow Man
Froggy's Best Christmas
Polar Express
A Piggie Christmas
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell
What Santa Can't Do
Snowmen At Christmas
The Biggest, Most Beautiful Christmas Tree
Rudolph
The Mouse Before Christmas
Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad (Little Critter series)
Twas the Night Before Christmas
Room For a Little One
The Little Drummer Boy
You might notice that there are more than 25 books on my list because I am having a difficult time narrowing down the final book list!
I wrapped up our books in plain brown paper and used scrapbook paper scraps and my scalloped paper punch to dress them up a bit. We plan to work on number recognition with the number/date tags on the books.
You may remember last year's book advent.
Every day in December, I shared ideas for crafts and activities based on our Christmas book for that day.
We will be repeating many of those same activities this year!
What books will you be reading this Christmas? Do you have some good recommendations?
PS Don't forget about the Black Friday sale on the Silhouette! Check out the secret page for the Silhouette Cameo here. Almost everything in the Silhouette store will be 30% off. If you use the promo code "OOPSEY", you will score an extra 10% off, for a total of 40% off! The deals will be good from 12:01 AM on November 25th until 11:59 PM on November 28! Maybe you can go do a little shopping?? 
Thanks, Alison! I am so thrilled that you included a list of Christmas books you guys like. I have seen many people doing stuff like this on Pinterest, but am glad to have a list of book suggestions, not just the idea. Hope Little Man loves it!
I love this idea! I’ll have to start shopping for books asap!
I’d love for you to link up and share: http://tutusandteaparties.blogspot.com/2011/11/pinteresting-linky-party-week-fourteen.html
Thank you for sharing your book advent. This is our first year to start the tradition at our house. I started collecting books before my son was born. We were inspired by your blog to add an activity each day. We are planning on borrowing lots of your ideas.Here is a link to what we are reading: we mention your blog in the post. Thanks again! http://inspirationthief.blogspot.com/2011/10/christmas-book-advent-calender.html
I remember your cute book advent last year!! I stocked up on Christmas books this year at our local used bookstore. We are so excited! Thank you for the fun idea.
I love your idea! Books will last so much longer than any toy ever could. Here’s another one to add to your list…Welcome Comfort by Patricia Polacco. Happy Holidays!
Love your wrapping! We are doing this this year as well and have a lot of the same books. It is hard to narrow them down, isn’t it? Hope you have a great weekend!
Jenn
Oh, I so love this idea! I really want to do it this year and with your awesome book list I just might get it done now, thank you dear!! Also, love how you added in tags for number recognition, you are the best mommy!!!!
I love all these ideas! We are kind of advent junkies and we really don’t need anymore, but I think we will do the book advent too. Thanks for the great idea and book list! I also love your Christmas tree countdown!
I am doing these too this Christmas. Thank you for all the craft ideas. I love the numbers….where did you find those or did you design them yourself? Thanks!!!
I loved last year’s book advent! This is such a cute and fun idea.
I saw your book advent last year after the holidays and was so excited to try it this year. We have several holiday books here that I have already wrapped and I have requested quite a few from the library already so that they have time to get in and can be wrapped and returned before their due dates. Thanks so much for includig your list too! I am finding it hard myself to choose books because I have my own favorites and then there are others that I think little man will enjoy. Whatever you do, do not search Amazon.com for Christmas books for children…..there are so many that look so cute.
Have you ever read “The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey?” It’s a favorite.
Hi! Found you via Pin, and super happy! Can you tell me how you enlarged your Santas Beard from your last years post?
Thanks again, Holly
This is an amazing idea! I love it and will be taking it up next year without a doubt. I will be looking at Christmas books all year to get myself prepared. It’s my little one’s first Christmas so I don’t have any favourites just yet!
Love your twist on our family’s Christmas book and Advent traditions…I hope you don’t mind me sharing this on my own blog. I’ll be sending folks your way and linking to your fabulous Oopsey Daisy blog, which I love. Thanks for your fabulous post! Julie
Alison, I saw your book activity advent last year and LOVED the idea. My sister in law had done a book advent, but not with coordinating activities. I decided to do one this year with my boys. Your posts were SO sweet!! I linked to your book advent in an Advent Activities page tab on my craft blog. I’m posting my Christmas books and activities this month. I think we only have four or five of the same books – there are sooo many good ones!! There are more that I couldn’t get ahold of that I want to include for next year : )
This might be my favorite Christmas advent tradition yet! We have a little chocolate calendar and we already missed the first 2 days of December. This year is not one of our best! LOL
Alison, I love this! I just started an advent linky party and would love for you to join. My family is doing a book advent for the first time this year and I had so much fun gathering all the books!
http://his4homeschooling.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-book-advent.html
Hi Alison
I a brand new follower of your site and am so excited to have found you. What an amazingly inspirational place to come and browse. I love love love the book advent idea and your packaging and ideas to use the numbers for number recognition teaching. I’m a little late to start this year but well ahead to make sure that I can do it for next Christmas. I have put a link to this article on my blog (I hope this is ok). I am blogging about my journey in raising my daughter bilingually using my non-native language (french) and this idea of a book a day really will open up huge avenues for fun language opportunities in our house. Thanks so much.
Thanks for joining my advent linky party! Your blog is full of great ideas!
I Love this!!! I am so glad that you posted a list of books that you like. I am going to do this for my nephews this Christmas and I can’t wait. I get so excited that I am actually going to start the day after Thanksgiving because I just can’t help myself. I figured Milly and the Macy’s Parade would be a great book to start with because the Macy’s Parade usually kicks off Christmas and Santa. I was thinking that this year I would add a Christmas book about Christmas from a different country and add a new country every year. This kind of goes off of Christmas around the world that they do in many elementary schools only at home. Really excited to start looking for new books.