Our Favorite New Christmas Books

In years past I have posted a long list of our Christmas Advent books and projects. I loved this tradition. However, it was a bit overwhelming as the kids got older and school/dance/social demands became greater. Reading a special book and doing a related project each day on top of our regular stuff was becoming more of a hassle than a joy some days. This year the kids and I decided to pick out just a few special books from our collection to read as a family. The rest are there for independent reading.

The majority of the books we chose were from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas show. We love the quality of these books. They have beautiful illustrations and come with a DVD. I love sharing gorgeous music with my children any way I can. As a person with a strong foundation in music, it has been a small heartache that my children have not enjoyed music very much over the years. I now realize that this is because our home was so noisy and stressed out for many years (and the noise was not often a joyful noise). Living with a mentally ill person changes the dynamics of everything, and when Goldilocks left our home, everything changed. One of the changes is that the kids now enjoy music much more. Music doesn't grate on their nerves anymore, because their nerves are not frayed from the get-go. I am getting sidetracked!

Tabernacle Choir Books ~ 

Good King Wenceslas ~ The story of Good King Wenceslas is one of my favorite Christmas stories of all time. This book is illustrated beautifully and narrated by Jane Seymour. I think I will go read it again!

God Bless Us Every One! ~  We loved this one. We are great champions of the Christmas Carol and I love anything Charles Dickens. This is the story behind A Christmas Carol and talks about Charles Dickens struggles at the time he wrote this epic Christmas story.

A Christmas Bell for Anya ~ This is a bittersweet story about a small village in northern Russia at the time of the fall of the last czar. Anya, the main character dies just a few days short of Christmas due to military violence. This one just didn't cut it for us this year. We are all about calm, peace and joy this year. We don't need any more drama or trauma in our lives. I decided to hang on to it for one more year but may then get rid of it then.

Christmas from Heaven  ~  This is a wonderful book about Gail Halvorsen (the Berlin airlift candy bomber). He even makes a live appearance in the DVD. My kids wanted to watch the DVD twice and I have seen them reading the book again on their own.

Four other books that make Christmas complete in our home ~

• Silver Packages An Appalachian Christmas Story
• Christmas in the Trenches
• The Crippled Lamb
• Too Many Tamales

What are your favorite Christmas books?

Blessings, Dawn