A Christmas tradition from our homes has been to give a book bag every year to our children (thank you to Dianne W. for this wonderful idea).
When they were young, we bought mostly picture books, activity books and comics; and although it’s changed to reference books, novels and magazines as they’ve grown older, it’s a gift our kids still look forward to every year. It’s the one present they can open while they’re waiting for the parents to get up. We have to admit it’s pretty funny to walk down the stairs on Christmas morning and see your kids sitting quietly reading around the tree! But it’s extremely gratifying as well.
We thought we’d share with you some of the Christmas books we’ve selected over the years. All of these books are beautifully written, rich with language and charming illustrations. We hope that you might find one (or more) that you would like to read with your child.
Books We’ve Given….
- The Jolly Christmas Postman (Janet and Allan Ahlberg)
- Christmas Tree Memories (Aliki)
- Franklin’s Christmas Gift (Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark)
- Gingerbread Baby (Jan Brett)
- The Wild Christmas Reindeer (Jan Brett)
- The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Jan Bret)
- Dream Snow (Eric Carle)
- Merry Christmas Maisy (Lucy Cousins)
- Country Angel Christmas (Tomie dePaola)
- Tony’s Bread (Tomie dePaola)
- Winter’s Gift (Jane Monroe Donovan)
- Snowballs (Lois Ehlert)
- Little Robin Red Vest (now called Little Robin’s Christmas) (Jan Fearnley)
- Attic Christmas (B.G. Hennessy)
- Angelina’s Christmas (Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig)
- Lucy and Tom’s Christmas (Shirley Hughes)
- Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas (Julia Rawlinson and Tiphanie Beeke)
- The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Tasha Tudor)
- The Polar Express (Chris Van Allsburg)
- McDuff’s Christmas (Rosemary Well and Susan Jeffers)
- I Spy Christmas : A Book of Picture Riddles (Walter Wick and Jean Marzollo)
- Max’s Christmas (Rosemary Wells)
- A Christmas Story (Brian Wildsmith)
Recent Book Purchases we’ve made for the Kindergarten
- Night Tree (Eve Bunting)
- Alfie’s Christmas (Shirley Hughes)
- Pippin the Christmas Pig (Jean Little and Werner Zimmermann)
- Auntie Claus (Elise Primavera)
- The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Barbara Reid)
- Richard Scarry’s Best Christmas Book Every! (Richard Scary)
- Olive, the Other Reindeer (Vivian Walsh and Jotto Seibold)
- Merry Christmas, Squirrels (Nancy Rose)
We’ve had a really exciting first term in Kindergarten and the children have worked so hard. They were the stars of the Christmas Concert, and we’re so very proud of all of them! We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for the New Year! We look forward to seeing you in January.
The Self-Regulated Teacher 
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As we enjoy another clear, crisp and sunny day in Vancouver this last Sunday in November, our thoughts have already turned to…Christmas.
We’re well past Remembrance Day now, so we’ve allowed ourselves to indulge in thinking about Christmas at home and school.
We’re both early decorators at home for the holidays. Christy has earned the illustrious nickname of “Christy Christmas” so you can imagine how fun and cute everything is at her house. Me? This picture from my Twitter profile gives you a clue as to what my Christmas obsession has been for the past 15 years.
(Insert photo) Some of my favourites from my vintage Christmas ornament collection
Besides planning for the festivities (we’re both cooking Christmas dinner this year), decorating (Christmas tree, outdoor lights, decorative touches around the house, fresh floral arrangements), baking (cookies, cookies and more cookies for the teenagers) there is the final and inevitable task of…Christmas shopping.
We don’t enjoy Christmas shopping like we used to. When our kids were much younger, Christmas shopping was a lot more fun: we would buy what we, the parents, wanted to give them. We would be able to visit one or two wonderful toy stores and cover the majority of our lists. Now their Christmas lists are very specific, from far-flung stores and might we say…expensive?
Here’s a little poem about Christmas gift-giving we came across a few years ago from a comment a reader left in a personal finance blog….
Something you wish for
Something you need
Something to wear
And something to read.
When we proposed this to the teenagers, it didn’t go over particularly well (“What? Only four gifts?”) But they did understand the sentiment behind it, that perhaps simplifying gift-giving at Christmas might be something to be considered when we reflect on what Christmas is truly about on a personal level.
However, the one gift that we haven’t changed too much is the Christmas Book Bag.
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