Advent is fast approaching and we are getting ready in the Kiser house! While my husband and I both share a love for the Church Calendar, we don’t keep Advent exactly like the church historical, so we set up our tree the day after Thanksgiving and the season is quite festive. We do, however, try to maintain some of the solemnity and longing through Scripture readings and activities that characterize the more traditional keeping of Advent. Please keep that in mind as you peruse the following list. 

I thought I’d share *some* of our favorite Advent and Christmas books. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but is a sampling of some of our favorites old and new. I put 24 of the picture books into my embroidered bags (above) and the kids open one per day during the month of December. Then, we have another basket full of others that don’t get wrapped, and a bunch of books I work into other holiday rhythms. Since there are so many, I’ll highlight some of our very favorites, but thought you might be inspired to hunt down some of the others at your local library or used online. 

Also, St. Nicholas/Santa Claus is a little hazy/mysterious around here and so we read books that include both the historical and magical personage–we take our cues from C.S. Lewis in this as Father Christmas appeared on the scene once Aslan was on the move and the White Witch’s spell of “always winter and never Christmas” began to, well, melt.

My Favorite Picture Books

If I had to choose one very favorite book that we would read every single year, I would have to go with An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco. Her other Christmas books are wonderful too, and I especially love how she weaves her Jewish heritage into the very Christian stories. But this one is just wonderful. Sacrificial love, honesty, repentance, generosity…it’s everything I want to remember at this time of year, and for the rest of it as well. It is, as many of Polacco’s books are, based on a true story of the author’s family.

The Christ Child by Maud & Miska Petersham is the book that always goes into our December 24th bag. The text is from a harmonization of the Gospels, and the illustrations by the Petershams are just stunning. I particularly love that they include the flight into Egypt after the more familiar and more frequently retold portions of the Nativity story.

The Third Gift by Linda Sue Park. Linda Sue Park is one of my favorite contemporary children’s authors and this beautifully illustrated picture book definitely lives up to her reputation in my mind. I adore books that tell a familiar story in a new way and Park does that in this story of a young boy who helps his father harvest myrrh and whose contribution makes it into the most famous story in the world. 

Other Picture Books We Love:

• Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant
• Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco
• Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
• The Christmas Rocket by Anne Malloy
• The Christmas Day Kitten by James Herriot
• The Mole Family’s Christmas by Russell Hoban
• Alfie’s Christmas by Shirley Hughes
• Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl Buck
• Christmas at Long Pond by William George

• Littlejohn’s Gift by Gloria Houston
• Cranberry Christmas by Wende and Harry Devlin
• The Snow Lady by Shirley Hughes
• Angel Mae by Shirley Hughes
• The Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg
• The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski
• Mousekin’s Christmas Eve by Edna Miller
• The Christmas Mouse by Elizabeth Wenning
• The Miracle of Saint Nicholas by Gloria Whelan

Slightly Longer Books

• The Living Nativity by Helen Haidle
• The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
• Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters by Patricia McKissack
• An Early American Christmas by Tomie de Paola
• The Trees of the Dancing Goats by Patricia Polacco
• The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola
• The Clown of God by Tomie dePaola
• The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston
• The Story of Christmas by Jane Ray

I love This Way to Christmas by Ruth Sawyer. She is a master storyteller and weaves folktales into this larger story of a lonely boy uniting isolated characters from many different cultures. Each person the boy encounters tells his a Christmas story from their own country. It’s delightful.

A Tree for Peter by Kate Seredy

Though not specifically a Christmas Book, this best-beloved of all my children’s book friends finds its climax at Christmastime. One lonely, poor, and crippled boy is the instrument God uses to redeem his entire community aided by the help of one single friend who shows him kindness and dispels his fear.

Special Days in Advent

As I explained last year, our family opens our stockings on St. Nicholas Day (December 6th), and so I always put a book or two about the real man behind the legends and/or a story about his influence in the book bag for that day. Likewise, while we are not Swedish, we also include traditional St. Lucia Day activities and books on her feast day, December 13th.

• The Baker’s Dozen by Aaron Shepard and Wendy Edelson
• Saint Nicolas the Gift Giver by Ned Bustard
• The Legend of Saint Nicholas by Demi
• Lucia, Saint of Light by Katherine Hyde
• Lucia Day in Sweden by Ewa Rydaker

Story Collections

A Treasury of Wintertime Tales edited by Noel Daniel is new to us this year, but many of the complete picture books included in it are old friends. From Little Cowboy’s Christmas by Joan Walsh Anglund to Nine Days to Christmas by Marie Hall Ets, these classic (and often hard to find) stories are beautifully reproduced in this oversized volume.

Christmas by Alice Dalgliesh. This vintage collection includes stories of the First Christmas, Christmas today, and Christmas around the world.