25 Books till Christmas!

Is anybody trying out the 25 books till Christmas tradition this year? I saw it around Facebook and Pinterest the last few years, and since my almost 5 year old is a HUGE book worm and my almost 2 year old is just starting to get into books, I thought this might be a good year to start the tradition in our house.

If you are not familiar, 25 books till Christmas, is another idea in the realm of advent. You wrap up 25 Christmas themed books, and then your children open up one book each day until Christmas day. Yes, 25 books does sound like a lot, and it also sounds really expensive, BUT there are so many ways to adapt this tradition to make it work for your family without it being a lot of work or costing a fortune.

First of all, you absolutely do not have to use new books. The idea isn’t for the kids to get a brand new present each day, it’s to get them excited, and to teach them about Christmas by reading stories about the upcoming holiday as they count down the days. You also do not have to use 25. I only have 21 books! This is a tradition that I plan on building on over the next few years. You could even do the 12 days of Christmas, or you can take however many books you have and start that many days ahead of time. Even though I don’t have 25 books, I still plan on starting December 1st. December is a crazy month for us, so I am sure we may miss a day or two, and I am also okay with us finishing a few days before Christmas and then rereading some of our favorites.

Being that my son is a December baby, we did already have a lot of Christmas books floating around our house before I even decided to start this tradition, most of which were given to him as gifts. These books are normally mixed in with the rest of our books throughout the year, but since I knew that I wanted to start the tradition this year, I have been collecting them and tucking them away. I also kept this in mind any time that I was at a kid’s resale event or thrift store, and picked up four or five used books for under $1 each. I did add two new books to the collection this year that I ordered from Scholastic through my son’s preschool for less than $4 a piece, so those will be a fun surprise. To round out our collection, I expanded our theme to include winter/snowman books as well, which are just as festive. I will probably only add one or two new books each year until our collection of 25 is all books that we really love. Other than that, I plan on re-wrapping the same books every single year and keeping them special by only pulling them out for the month of December.

I wrapped up all of our books with some wrapping paper that I already had and tied them with some ribbon. I have also seen this tradition done with a giant roll of brown paper and string, which is inexpensive and gave it a really pretty, natural look for under the tree. Like I said, you can completely adapt this for what works for your family. Get super creative or keep it super simple!

Here are some of the books that we included in our collection:
(You can click on any of the images for an affiliate link to Amazon)

I can’t wait to start this tradition this year! I think Gage is really going to be into it. He is aready obsessed with the paper chain that we started last week. Ellie is pretty much content reading the same book over and over and over and over, but I bet she’ll love to to rip open the paper and cuddle up for a story as well. Has anybody else started the 25 Books till Christmas tradition or have any other fun ways of counting down till Christmas?
TWENTY FIVE DAYS!!!!!!!

xo
c