A Bookish Advent Calendar

It's almost the first of December! Time to dust off your advent calendars, if you're like me that is. 

I never really liked chocolate advent calendars as a kid. The chocolate never tasted that nice, in the Australian summer it always got a bit melty, and we usually shared 1 calendar between 3 (me and my 2 sisters.)

I always loved opening little windows on my paper calendar and finding a new christmas picture underneath. I'm pretty sure I can remember making my own out of an old cereal box once upon a time too.

Part of my Advent Calendar Collection!

I still have my calendars from when I was younger, and have started collecting paper calendars over the years. My kids don't know about the chocolate ones yet, and have their own paper ones too.

Last year I was excited by the concept of the book advent calendar. I had dismissed it though, as I thought; 'how on earth can I buy 24 new books, all christmas themed each year?' It turns out this isn't what most people do anyway!

Our first book advent calendar

I came up with another slightly different spin as well. I've ended up wrapping some Christmas themed books, two new books, and some old favourites that have been missing from story time. I also made up the following letter to be given to the kids on the 1st of December to make it that little bit more magical;



Dear Children;

Santa told us we needed to practice our gift wrapping before Christmas. He sent us to your house and we wrapped up 24 of your books! One for you to open each day until Christmas.

You might even find we’ve wrapped up a surprise or two for you.

We hope that you have been good enough to get on Santa’s nice list this year. If you have, that means we will get to wrap gifts for you, and Santa will deliver them on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas!

Love The Elves xxx

I made the numbered tags using number stamps and Christmas tree shaped tags from The Make Good Co. Alternatively, you can download these fantastic tags from the Simple As That Blog;

Tags from Simple As That

There are many other ideas for book advent calendars. Below are a two that I might try in the years to come;

No wrap - read Christmas books all the time

The 'no wrap' book advent calendar. Placing 24 Christmas books in a basket and having the title of the book written down in a numbered box or pouch. From Reading Confetti.

Clever wrapping and stacking from Here come the Girls

At Here Come the Girls Blog, they do Christmas books and films for their countdown.

What is your favourite way to countdown to Christmas?