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January 2019
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Inside: These are the most magical Christmas books for kids. For the best holiday tradition, share these heartfelt children's Christmas books with your family every year. The end of every year brings together three of my family's most important core values:
Because this is our absolute favorite time of year, we try to soak up as much winter holiday spirit (and dessert) as humanly possible. One year, we channeled Clark Griswold with our outdoor lights and put them up before Halloween. Sorry, neighbors! (But hey, science says decorating early makes you happier, so there's that.) Another year, we planned an elaborate Polar Express night for the kids, complete with hot cocoa and marshmallows, golden tickets like this, and my husband dressing up as the train conductor. And then this year, we decided to build up our home library of Christmas books for kids, so we embarked on a quest to find the absolute best children's Christmas books. Sounds fairly tame, except that we started our quest in August, and we've spent three solid months reading every Christmas or winter holiday book we could get our hands on. The Problem With Some Christmas Books for KidsSince becoming parents, we've amassed a small but treasured collection of favorite Christmas picture books. These are books we love as much as our kids do, so we don't mind reading them again and again every December. But early on in our quest to find the best Christmas books for kids, we realized something unfortunate about some of the holiday stories out there: they were long and preachy. I certainly don't mind reading a longer picture book if my kids are into it. But my 5-year-old bookworm started doing something that made me realize some of the children's Christmas books may be too long for their target audience. This is a child who would happily listen to me read a stack of 50 picture books in one sitting. But for some of these holiday books, she would turn to me after we were a few pages into the story and say, “Mommy, can we stop reading this now?” As it turns out, kids don't really want to listen to a lecture disguised as a children's book. So we focused on finding the best Christmas books that we can share with our children to celebrate the spirit of the holiday season. Related: The Most Meaningful Gifts for Kids Who Have Everything The Best Children's Books That Will Make Your Child's Holiday MagicalThe goal of my family's months-long research project to find Christmas books for kids was simple: find the best books that both kids and parents will enjoy. (Because if our kids are going to ask us to read a Christmas story again and again, it may as well be something we appreciate, too!) Every week, I put a huge stack of books on hold at the library, plus at every visit I browsed the shelves for even more children's Christmas books – not to mention every Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and other winter holiday book I could find. While we celebrate Christmas in our family, I want my kids to understand, appreciate, and respect the holidays celebrated by other families. All told, my kids and I read hundreds of picture books on the topic of Christmas and other winter holidays. The list below is the cream of the crop from those hundreds of books: the books I loved reading, and the books my kids couldn't get enough of. Read these Christmas books for kids to get your whole family excited about the holiday season. Related: 42 Experience Gifts That Will Make You Everyone's Favorite Person Bonus: How to Turn This List Into a Festive Book Advent CalendarFor an extra special way to share these Christmas books with your children, many families enjoy sharing holiday stories through book Advent calendars. Here's how you start a Christmas book Advent tradition:
Kids love this Advent calendar book-a-day tradition, but if 25 books of Christmas feels like a bit much, you might try another tradition from Iceland called Jolabokaflod, or the “Christmas Book Flood.” For this, you give each other books on Christmas Eve and spend the night reading and drinking hot cocoa. Sounds magical to me! Related: 30 Fun Holiday Activities for Your Advent Calendar {Printable} 32 Most Heartfelt and Meaningful Christmas Books for KidsAnd now for your list of the most magical Christmas books for kids that you'll want to share with your family every December! But first, a quick warning: I was surprised to find that many of our favorite children's Christmas books are now out of print. If you see a book on this list you'd like to pick up for your family, you may want to do it this year rather than waiting until next year. I learned the hard way – some books I'd planned on picking up copies of this year are now out of print, and now they're not available anywhere online. Ack! Also, to keep things simple, you should know that we skipped over any holiday sequels to other children's books. If a holiday version of one of your kid's favorite children's books is out there, go for it! Note: indicates my family's absolute top favorites on the list. These are the books my kids can't get enough of! Classic Children's Christmas BooksWhen it comes to the best Christmas books for kids, you can't beat the classics. Every family seems to have their own favorite, but after reading aaaaaaaallllllllllllll the classic holiday tales in a short period of time, these are the ones our whole family loved most of all.
Related: The Ultimate List of the Best Picture Books, Endorsed by Kids And Parents Heartwarming Christmas Books for KidsOut of the hundreds of children's Christmas books we read, these are the most heartfelt and meaningful stories we came across. You'll want to share these with your child every year!
Related: The Ultimate List of the Best Children's Books About Kindness Silly And Funny Children's Christmas BooksFor a fun break from the heartwarming Christmas picture books, mix in one of these silly, funny tales.
Related: 10 Small But Meaningful Stocking Stuffers That Will Delight Your Kids {Printable} Winter Holiday Books About Traditions Around the WorldThese winter holiday books are a lovely way to introduce your children to how people around the world celebrate their own winter traditions.
Bonus book: Our library didn't have a copy of Lucia Morning in Sweden, but it's on our list to pick up a copy next year because we've heard great things about it!
Bonus! 4 Awesome Christmas Chapter BooksMy oldest reads chapter books constantly, so she set herself a personal goal to read as many Christmas chapter books as she could this year. Every time she found one she loved, she added it to a list for me. Then I read her favorites and whittled it down to the ones we both loved. If you're looking for a Christmas chapter book that will make a great read-aloud with older kids, this is the list for you!
Download now: More Joy, Less Stress: 2018 Holiday PlannerYour TurnWhat are your favorite Christmas books for kids? Share in a comment below! Author informationI'm a mom of four, a recovering perfectionist, and the author of Happy You, Happy Family. Parenting is hard enough without all the guilt we heap on top of ourselves. So let's stop trying to be perfect parents and just be real ones. Sound good? Join my mailing list and as a bonus, you'll get 25+ incredibly helpful cheat sheets that will ease your parenting struggles. The post The Ultimate List of the Best Christmas Books for Kids appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.
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