3 Garnets & 2 Sapphires: Christmas Book

Soon after I completed an advent calendar craft for our 3 children, a reader told me that she had seen a great advent calendar idea using books somewhere online. A couple of days later, I happened upon this Christmas Book Advent Calendar on the blog MADE. I loved this idea about having one wrapped Christmas book to read each day as a way to get children excited about reading. However, since I had already made an advent calendar and we do not have 24 Christmas books, I modified the idea to create a fun Christmas activity for counting down the last 12 days of Christmas instead.

We had about 9 Christmas books in our home library, so I added 3 new ones to make a total of 12. One of the books we already owned was The Night Before Christmas, which will be reserved for reading on Christmas Eve. I wrapped all the books in one of two different wrapping papers, with the exception of that title, which was wrapped in a different paper to set it apart.

Starting on December 13th, one of the children will either choose a wrapped book out of the stack or reach into a bag and pull out a book blindly. I will let them choose which they would rather do. Then this book will be their bedtime story that night. The children will have to take turns choosing a book in rotation each night.

Some of the books in our Christmas book collection:

If my children enjoy this activity, I will definitely repeat it next year, switching out a few of the books for new ones. After a few years, we might actually have enough books to do an advent calendar. Thanks for the inspiration Dana!

There are so many stories about all the exciting things that happen while Santa and his crew are getting ready for their busiest night of the year. Have you ever wondered what happens after that last toy has been delivered? There are rarely any tales told about that . . . until now. "The Night After Christmas" was a children's stage play transformed into a children's Christmas book by the same author Michael Hebler and illustrator Anita Driessen.

Inspired by Clement C. Moore's "The Night Before Christmas", this book tells in rhyming text the story of how Santa returns to the North Pole, exhausted but full of joy, while children around the world are yet again sleeping contently. Our 6 year old son recalls Moore's story very well, since it is a tradition for our family to read this book before bedtime every Christmas Eve, but our 3 year old twins do not. To them "The Night After Christmas" was just a nice story about Santa. It will make much more sense to them when we reread this book at bedtime on Christmas night. Both the adults and the children enjoyed the story and the textured artwork.

To learn more about this book, visit TheNightAfterChristmas.net . You can purchase this book in an 8-1/2" square soft cover right on the website for $8.99, as well as on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com . "The Night After Christmas" makes the ideal bedtime story for Christmas night and we will be adding it to our annual Christmas traditions.

Thank you to Michael Hebler for providing a complimentary sample copy of this book for us to base this review upon.

The 12 Days of Christmas Books

Holiday 2010 Review: "The Night After Christmas" by Michael Hebler

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