Forty Books of Nativity

We're starting a new Advent tradition this year and I'm very excited about it. The fact is, we are book addicts at our house. Really, we have a problem. Books are everywhere, in every room, packed into every bookshelf and also stacked when there isn't enough shelf space. We have three full bookshelves of kids books alone. University teaching, dissertation writing, choir directing and homeschooling doesn't help the problem. Our collection just keeps growing.

But one of the things I always regret at the end of the Christmas season is that we never manage to read all of our wonderful Christmas books. Last year I posted about some of our favorite books here. This year, I found a great idea for reading our Christmas books on this blog (thanks Ashley!). In their house, they put up the Christmas tree by November 15 and they wrap up all their Christmas books and place them under the tree. Then the kids can unwrap and enjoy them throughout the Christmas season. Wonderful idea! And a great way to make sure we enjoy all of our Nativity books and prepare ourselves spiritually for the feast.

We put up our tree on St. Herman Day (December 13), but I thought we could still use this tradition. So, this past weekend, I gathered up all of our children's Christmas books. I had about 25. Then, with a little creativity (pulling in books about various saints and feasts during the fast period and also some Bible story books from which we can read the Nativity story) I managed to pull together 40 books! I wrapped them all (yes, I'm that excited and crazy) and put enough for the first two weeks in a basket by the fireplace. We'll be opening one book each day and reading it. Once it's opened, it goes in another basket to be enjoyed again through the Nativity season. The kids are so excited about this! And frankly, so am I. I'll be posting information about each book we read on a daily (or almost daily) basis here.

Happy Nativity Reading to all!