Christmas Book Advent Calendar

Last year was our first year of having a children’s Christmas book advent calendar, and it instantly became one of our favourite Christmas traditions.

Thomas and Willow were 2 and 4 at the time, and seeing their little faces eagerly anticipate which book was next was pure magic. Creating their book advent calendars was a labour of love and not something that came together overnight, in fact, I have been collecting Christmas books over the past 3 years (I know, dedication!). Although to be honest that’s not a laborious task for me owing to my obsession with Christmas and equal love of books.

What I did find a little tricky though was finding 24 books that both children would enjoy and understand, but last year has shown me that they will both find it just as magical even if some of the books are suited better to one of my little elves than the other. I must admit, I am equally as excited as I know they will be!

Some of the Christmas books are new for this year, but most have just been stowed away since last Christmas. I don’t know about you but requests for the same books over and over (and over!) again at bedtime does get a tad boring and so the thought of fresh content is very exciting! Even if the relief will only be for the festive season. A couple of our books relate to things we will be doing in December, I’m taking the children to see Wind in the Willows at the theatre and so a week before, the literary classic will be one of their books to open. Not strictly Christmas I know, but it doesn’t matter, and I don’t think I’ll be putting that particular book away in January either.

To make this year even more magical, I decided to add a bit of Festive Fingerprints to the mix and I have used my Elf and Fairy gift wrap making kits for some of the books, as well as my Reindeer gift tags for the advent numbers. I deliberately kept the design for the back of all my tags blank so that they could be used in as many ways as possible, so they were perfect. I have a little wooden stamp set which I used for the advent numbers, and the lovely thing is that once you have made the tags you can use them year on year! I like to have a combination of wrapped and unwrapped books just because I think it looks lovely when its displayed. I am hoping that this year the elf and fairy prompts will help Thomas and Willow remember whose turn it is to open. I have used a mix of ribbons and bells from my vast collection to decorate and I think it looks gorgeous.

I decided to get two of the Farmer Christmas Activity book, and I plan to have this as advent number 1, and pop them in our Elf on The Shelf delivery on the 1st of December to kick things off. The rest of the books will then *magically* have appeared on the shelves above the children’s beds when they get home from school. I’m giddy with Christmas excitement at the thought!

The queen of the Christmas book advent calendar, and the inspiration for many of the books I have included is the lovely Liv @ultimategirlgang, but I have added my own book list below in case they inspire your own festive reading.

1. Farmer Christmas Activity Book - https://farmerchristmas.net
2. Last Stop on the Reindeer Express - https://www.polarpost.co.uk
3. Christmas in Exeter Street
4. Farmer Christmas - https://farmerchristmas.net
5. Peter Rabbit Tales: A Christmas Wish
6. We're Going on an Elf Chase
7. The Story Orchestra: The Nutcracker
8. Lapland the untold story of Father Christmas - https://portal.laplanduk.co.uk
9. The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit
10. Stick Man
11. Farmer Christmas Tractor Travels - https://farmerchristmas.net
12. The Polar Express
13. The Twelve Days of Christmas - https://fableheart.com
14. Wind in the Willows
15. Pick a Pine Tree
16. The Jolly Christmas Postman
17. Brambly Hedge Winter Story - https://www.polarpost.co.uk
18. Father Christmas - https://www.polarpost.co.uk
19. Mog’s Christmas
20. Little Robin Red Vest
21. The Story Orchestra: Swan Lake
22. Farmer Christmas Festive Farmyard - https://farmerchristmas.net
23. The Christmas Eve Tree
24. Twas the Night Before Christmas
25. One Christmas Wish