Since Grace is in love with books, I thought a book advent calendar would be the perfect tradition to start this year. I've always wanted to collect enough Christmas books to be wrapped, opened and read everyday leading up to Christmas. It's been my favorite idea to encourage her early literacy. Being a teacher, I love seasonal books and have quite the collection. I've been collecting them after the season every year since I started teaching. Some of them are from the $ store, gifts from Grandparents and even photo books of past Christmases. I also found some extra special books in the London bookstores last year, like Grace's personal favorite, Winnie the Pooh and the Christmas Surprise. There's only one noted to not be opened until Christmas Eve- Twas the Night Before Christmas read by Grammie Mo.
Grace gets to pick out one wrapped book every night after Daddy gets home from work. It took a few days for her to understand that she only gets to open one book/night. Now, she says "one book" as she shows us one finger and crawls under the tree. Connor, we look forward to you being old enough to become more involved in this family tradition in the future. Enjoy!
Love, Mommy
Other ideas:
- I'm not crazy about the fact that we use so much wrapping paper. Maybe in the future I'll get more organized and reuse bags and tissue paper.
- Once Connor's old enough to join, I've read to wrap the books using different wrapping paper per child. That way when they alternate who opens the nightly book, they choose a book wrapped in their own paper.
- We just have the wrapped books under the tree which go into a basket I have placed next to it, but there are so many ideas out there. I also like the idea of having a wrapped gift at the foot of your child's bed, ready and waiting to be opened every night or morning. Maybe when they're older? If your kids' have their own trees in their bedrooms, you can also keep them under there.
- If you're not thrilled about the idea buying so many books, you can also rent them from your local library. You may have to plan this in advance in case others have a similar idea.
Original source: maddycakesmuse.com
My daughter's age at time of project: 24 mo.
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