The holidays are my favorite time of year! With all the decor and the parties, it is a season full of contagious joy. It’s also the time of year I get to bring out some of my favorite books. This week I’m bringing you something different, not a book review but an idea of how you can use books to enhance the joy this holiday season. In our home we celebrate Christmas but this idea can be applied for any holiday you celebrate as a way to help mark time.
Kids love a visual representation of time. Countdown clocks and schedules can often help them keep track of dates and events to anticipate. An advent calendar is a tradition in many homes as a way to countdown before Christmas. My collection of holiday books seems to grow each year and since we pack them all away with our holiday decorations they are often forgotten until our tree goes up. Instead of adding all of the books to our shelves, I wrap each book individually and add them to a countdown basket. Then each night, after brushing and before bedtime, my daughter gets to pick a new book from the basket for us to unwrap and read together as a family. It’s a favorite tradition for our family and we all love the opportunity to snuggle together by the lights of the Christmas tree and read a favorite holiday story.
Don’t let the number of books required for a full countdown frighten you! There are no rules when you create a new tradition for your family. Maybe countdown through the nights of Hanukkah, or consider counting down just the last week before your big family party. I knew I wanted to countdown all twenty-five days of December leading up to Christmas, so I went right to the library, the perfect place to pick up some great books that can be returned as soon as the decorations are packed. Last year, after the season I made a list of our favorite books to read as a family and then kept an eye out for some of those books to go on super sale after the holiday season. And each year as our interests grow with age, I can get new books from the library to complete our list. The end of the year can feel so rushed with to-do lists galore, so adding a tradition that forces a small slow down to each day has been a wonderful addition to our holiday plans.
Kayla is a wife, mother and beach-loving book reader. She's a family photographer over at Kayla Rochelle Photography, and organizer of the Facebook group, Little One’s Literary Review. Her love of good books started as a child and only grew with the birth of her own daughters. Kayla's got an undying love of children's books with gorgeous illustrations and moral lessons.
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