On the 1st day of Christmas my parents gave to me, one Christmas book…. On the 12th day of Christmas my parents gave to me…. another Christmas book. 📚

I’m a huge book lover and that love of books and that love was passed down from my mom.  (Thanks Mom!)  Naturally, a tradition I loved growing up and was thrilled to start with my own kids was our 12 Days of Christmas Books.

It’s amazing how quickly our Christmas book collection has grown in just a few years!

Here’s how the tradition goes:

Each year we buy 12 new (at least new to our family) Christmas books for our boys.  We try to balance the books between Jesus, Santa, and general wintery books.  We try to make sure we focus on why we celebrate Christmas so we don’t want to do all Santa books in one year.

I try to pick up the books throughout the year at garage sales or book sales.  It’s a great way to get the books for a little less and they’re usually still in really good condition.  I’ve also found some treasures I might not have known to look for if I was only purchasing books off Amazon or a bookstore.

Then we wrap each book individually and place them in a basket under or near the Christmas tree.  Starting December 13th (I still have to do the math on this each year 😬) the boys take turns picking one book to open and read each night before bed.

Once opened, the books join our big basket of Christmas books from years past.  We only have these books out during Christmas time, which makes them extra fun and special.

That’s it.  It’s a simple tradition, but one our family truly enjoys.  I love seeing our boys jumping up and down with excitement to see what book they’ll unwrap each night. 

I’ll be adding some lists of our favorite Christmas books and the ones we are opening this Christmas.