I LOVE this idea! A friend said that she will actually use library books for this too! No need to purchase the books if you can’t or don’t want to actually buy them!

I love the Christmas Advent Calendar idea. I gave my grandchildren a book each Advent Sunday! They loved it and it helped them focus on the true meaning of Christmas

I’ve wanted to do this the last couple years but with a new baby I didn’t get around to it. This year I set the intention to do so, collected a couple more to add to my winter/Christmas library, and prepared myself after Thanksgiving(yay for that week between Thanksgiving and December!). I didn’t wrap them though, and just set out 6 for the week, with their covers facing outward as an invitation to read. My 6.5 year old and 2 year old have loved grabbing a book and asking me to read it to them. We snuggled in and read the stories, sometimes several times in a row. Now that we’re in the last 10 days to Christmas I think I want to make the effort of wrapping and will use the tag pdf you’ve provided. Thank you!!

We do this, and we have a wonderful collection of books from years of playing the game! Even my adult children won’t part with the books they got over the years.

What I great idea!! I love it! My kids love doing the advent calendar so i’m always looking for new ideas to do it!! Can’t wait to try this one!

I gathered all my Christmas books that would be possible to read in one sitting. I had 13. I purchased another 11 books. My children helped me wrap them all, not being allowed to really have a good look at any of them. We printed off the labels and they cut them out and we tied them to presents. They had to wait almost a week before I would tell them why we had wrapped them. They were so excited. It has been so enjoyable to sit together and read Christmas stories each day. It’s something that I always want to do at Christmas time, sit and read with the children. But too often the season gets away from me without reading much at all. But this past week has been different, so wonderful to take the time to sit and read together. Thank you for this wonderful idea and for providing the lovely tags.

My boys and I are trying this for the first time and are really enjoying it. Leaving all the books out for display was too tantalizing for my three year old, so we just bring them out on the day they will be opened.

This could also be a fun activity in a classroom, where books are wrapped as read alouds for each day, and students get to take turns unwrapping the read aloud for the day. My Gr. 4 students typically love this kind of activity and would be filled with great anticipation of our next book!

How fun! In my home, our advent activities include a smattering of Christmas books, but I’ve never thought to wrap them until I saw your post photo. I’ll add a title, The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, it’s one of our favorites.

I started early this year (September, when they aren’t all checked out), checking out Christmas books from the library in September to review books myself and see which might want to add to our family’s collection. There are soooooooo many out there, to choose from, and many of them fell short of whatI was looking for in a book.

We’re going to do this next month!

Ive heard of this traditional before. I may have to act on it this year. We also love Jothan’s Journey and series that have advent readings for each day.

We always have a holiday stash of books but I’ve never wrapped them. As I’ve been trying to not use wrapping paper, it looks like I have more fabric gift bags to make. And, if my boys don’t like the idea, then I have lots of gift bags to use next year!

Great idea. We’ve been read Tabitha’s Treasure which is an advent chapter book. Very good for many ages. It’s part of a trilogy.

This is awesome. Hopefully it’s not to late to start something like this with my kids. I think they’ll love it.

Fun!!! Great idea! I may not wrap library books though as the kids may think they are books to keep.

We read One Wintry Night by Ruth Bell Graham every December. My parents had the same book when I was a kid. The pictures are just so beautiful, and the story is told so well.

We did this last year for advent and plan to do it again! The kids and I really enjoyed it!

Like the holiday book tradition. Your picture book suggestion has inspired me to have my kids create their own picture book using a 3-ring binder they can create by including all previous school artwork, activities etc. that they have done then adding to the binder each year all the holiday pictures they draw, color pages, mazes, stories etc The binder will be exciting to get out every year and keep out during the season to look at, read and share with others.

Awesome idea and can easily be adapted and used in a classroom!

Wonderful tradition– so much is learned through reading to children and discussing books together (and the kids don’t even realize they are learning or “doing school”

What a cute Idea! I’ll have to pull out our Christmas and winter books and do it! Maybe I can pick up a few new ones at the thrift store too. Each year we give the kids a new book for Christmas .

What a great way to celebrate the advent season! I appreciate all of your content. I am an American living in Switzerland and your work is a great roadmap as I plan my tutoring lessons each week. Thank you!

I love this idea! I always give books as gifts.

Hi Robin,

So great to find someone else who loves The Christmas Day Kitten–it’s one of my favorite James Herriot stories. We did the Book Advent Calendar this year and my family agreed that it’s a tradition that we’re going to continue. I wrote a post with reviews of the books we read. I’ll be adding some of the books mentioned here for next year!

http://actively-reading.squarespace.com/blog/2017/2/3/aftermath-of-the-book-advent-calendar

My son is love the advent books this year. It’s going to be a great tradition for my family!

I love this idea! I wish I had started at the beginning of December. Maybe I will try it for January to make the cold winter months more fun!

This is a great way to include all ages of family members! We have 2 and 10-year-old girls, so we are always looking for unique ways to include everyone (including ourselves)! We are loving AAS 1 and can’t wait to start the pre-reading level with our youngest! :)

We do this every year too! Love finding 50 cent books at Savers during the year to add to our collection. And I re-wrap them before I store them for the next year. Makes it so much easier to just pull out and go.

What a great idea! Unwrapping the books builds suspense & increases interest. If you don’t number them it will surprise mom too. This could actually work any time of the year to add excitement.

Thank You! This is so great. Love this! so much Fun to share with a warm cup of hot cocoa, a blanket and family .The Heart set right to receive all of The Wonderful Season Christ has giving to all who would receive Him.

So crazy! Researching Christmas books and requesting them from the library was on my to-do list today…I went the other day and grabbed a bunch, and oh my, there were some REAL duds!! Thank you!!