One of my favorite parts of Christmas is reading aloud in front of the fire and the Christmas tree lights each evening in December.
This year we’re reading The Handel’s Messiah Family Advent Reader, which includes 28 nightly devotionals and an audio CD with related bits of The Messiah to accompany each reading. A “Read More About It” section in the back provides additional details and resources for digging deeper on each topic.
In addition to our nightly Advent reading, we often read a Christmas picture book. I’ve already posted about The Baker’s Dozen: A St. Nicholas Tale. Since we love our 6 cats, we also enjoy The Twelve Days of Christmas Cats, read/sung to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” If you’ve ever mixed cats and Christmas, you’ll understand the line about “a kitten in a fir tree”!
One of our favorite Christmas books is An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco. It’s a sweet story of family togetherness and unselfishness.
In honor of Frankie’s orange, we place oranges on our mantel each Christmas (along with our cherished nutcracker collection).
What are your favorite Christmas books and traditions?
It’s interesting that you ask this. I love Christmas and its traditions. But this year our books are packed away in storage, as are the tree, and all the usual decorations for it and for the house. I did dig out our advent candles and Jesse tree. But when we came over here to house sit on Wednesday, I brought only the candles over. It’s a simplified Christmas, but instead of making it sad, it’s made us focus on other things. Traditions are lovely, and very meaningful, but in the end they are only trappings, I think. Being together, loving each other, and knowing where exactly the joy comes from — these are the real traditions of Christmas.
My favorite Christmas book is Christmas Day In the Morning. I love the story with its example of giving acts of service as gifts. My favorite tradition is attending the candlelight communion service on Christmas Eve. It sets the tone and refocuses us on Christ after the hustle of holiday preparations.
Thanks for sharing, MaryJo. I’m going to look into The Handel’s Messiah Famiy Advent Reader. It sounds wonderful!
We don’t do many presents at Christmas–just three….like the Wise Men. So under our tree I put baskets of Christmas books for us all to read from throughout the season. My daughter loves it!!
Posted a photo of our tree with baskets this year on FB.
Diane
I love reading to my children in front of the fireplace, too. Even hyper kids become quiet. One of my favorite Christmas classics is A Christmas Carol. Of course, that has nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas…