Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Christmas Book Basket

When Olivia was one, I started a tradition of wrapping 24 Christmas books and putting them in a basket. She opened one each morning in December for us to read together. The next year I bought and wrapped 24 more Christmas books, so Julie could join in the fun. By the time Clay was here to celebrate his first Christmas, I had increased my Christmas book supply even more. I didn't have quite enough for each child to open one book per day, but we still had plenty of Christmas books to unwrap and read.
When we moved to this house (Jan. 05), somehow the Christmas book storage container was misslabled and missplaced. The first Christmas in our new house was celebrated without our Christmas books! I was distraught! Where could those books be? I bought some new Christmas books that year, but not enough for the children to unwap one each day. Just enough for us to read and enjoy that December. For two Christmases we did not have our Christmas books. Then, one summer when I was cleaning out my storage containers, I found them! They had been misslabled! Hooray!
Somewhere along the way I have stopped wrapping those 60+ books. Now, on the first day of December, I just get them out of storage and put them in two large baskets in our den. The children love reading the books from those baskets each day. Leah and Sam choose from the Christmas book basket for books for me to read to them at bedtime. I choose longer ones to read aloud to the children each morning. And of course throughout the day I read whatever book is brought to me by Leah or Sam, Christmas book or not.
Happy Reading!

2 comments:

  1. I LOVE CHRISTMAS BOOKS, MY CHILDREN ALWAYS DID AS WELL. ONE OF THEM STILL DOES! HA.
    HOPE ALL IS WELL AT THE JOHNSONS, I THINK OF YOU ALL ALOT, JUST HAVEN'T BEEN IN TOUCH. I FEEL LIKE I NEED MY WONDER WOMAN CAPE OR SOMETHING THESE DAYS, SO BUSY!
    HAPPY READING. HELLO TO O, J, C, L, AND S.

    LOVE,
    LIESA

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  2. I keep all of our Christmas books in a basket as well. We don't have 60 but do have a collection of books with various stories for young and old.

    Hope you enjoy your time off from school.

    Anita

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