I had so much fun making my daughter a Christmas Bedtime Story Advent Calendar. Each day during December she will open a door and find a picture of a Christmas story. Most of the stories are picture books but I have also chosen Christmas stories from Teddy Robinson, My Naughty Little Sister and The Moomins.
To make our Christmas Bedtime Story Advent Calendar I downloaded a free template from Twinkl. I chose the Christmas books that I wanted to include then printed out pictures of the covers and stuck them onto the plain card template. (I took photos of the illustrations from the longer stories and I’m going to see if my daughter will guess which books they come from).
The stories that I chose come from our own collection and from the library:
- A Christmas Story by Brian Wildsmith
- The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
- Teddy Robinson Meets Father Christmas (from More About Teddy Robinson)
- Aliens Love Panta Claus by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort
- Mr Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
- Is It Christmas Yet? by Jane Chapman
- Socks for Santa by Adam and Charlotte Guillain and Lee Wildish
- The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
- Jingle Bells by Nick Butterworth
- The Fir Tree by Tove Jansson (from Tales from Moominvalley)
- Little Grey Rabbit’s Christmas by Alison Uttley and Margaret Tempest
- The Nutcracker by Susan Chandler and Kate Leake
- The Twelve Days of Christmas illustrated by Britta Teckentrup
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
- Lucy and Tom’s Christmas by Shirley Hughes
- The Fairytale Hairdresser and Father Christmas by Abie Longstaff and Lauren Beard
- The Naughtiest Story of All by Dorothy Edwards and Shirley Hughes (from My Naughty Little Sister)
- When It Snows by Richard Collingridge
- The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
- Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
- Mog’s Christmas by Judith Kerr
- Katie’s London Christmas by James Mayhew
- Refuge by Anne Booth and Sam Usher
- The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore and Mark Marshall
And here’s the finished Advent Calendar. I thought about asking my daughter to colour the cover but then decided to make her Christmas Bedtime Story Advent Calendar as a surprise!
Last year I wrapped twenty four books for our book tree advent calendar. I borrowed lots of new Christmas stories from the library and wrapped a mix of English and German books. Every day my daughter opened a parcel and we read the story at bedtime.
Christmas and Snowy (the two little men sitting on our book tree) brought books every day in 2013 and 2014. Not only did they bring books but they created a scene to go with each book. Some of my favourites include Stick Man ( with a stick family made from pipe cleaners), Mr Willowby’s Christmas Tree, The Night Before Christmas (they hung their socks up!) and Weihnachtskuchen für Allee (which led to a very messy baking session!).
I very much enjoyed putting together last year’s Advent Calendar on Story Snug. twenty four authors, illustrators and book bloggers told us which books they enjoyed reading at Christmas as well as telling us which book(s) they would like to find under their Christmas Tree. Their wintery choices, many unfamiliar to me, are pinned on our Pinterest board.
This year’s Story Snug Advent Calendar will be different again but you’ll have to wait until the end of November before I tell you more!
What a brilliant idea Catherine! And might save you on all the wrapping this year! I’m planning on wrapping again this year, BookBairn is too little to get the idea of opening the doors yet but she loves unwrapping. I just hope she will manage to wait for only one per day! Also fabulous selection of books, I need to go through ours but I don’t think we will have many new ones from last year. They will all seem new to BookBairn anyway! x
Thank you! I had lots of fun making it. I think that a Book Tree Advent Calendar is better for little ones. They can much better understand how many days it is until Christmas with real objects. I love rediscovering our Christmas books every year 🙂
Such lovely choices, I still need to get The Jolly Postman myself!! We’re not doing a book advent this year but have done it in the past, such a great alternative to all the chocolate.
I’m not sure how many more Book Advent Calendars we’ll do but hopefully my daughter will enjoy this one 🙂
I love these! What a brilliant idea and what a lovely personal touch! I hope you keep photos of them for your daughter when she grows up to enjoy the memories even more.
I have photos of every day of Snowy and Christmas’ two Advent Calendars. I hope that my daughter will look back and enjoy the memories 🙂
What a gorgeous idea Catherine – I love this. Brilliant way to have plenty of bookish Christmas fun.
It’s not an idea I’ve seen done before, it just came to me out of the blue! It took a lot less time than wrapping twenty four books too!
Love this idea, and will be following suit. Thank you for sharing! I was wondering: do you have any recommendations for German (non-religious) Christmas books?
You’re welcome Julia! The German recommendation is difficult, I’ve found that many of the stories are translated from English. If any of the stories on Story Snug have been translated from English into German I have tagged them German (although I can’t vouch for the quality of translations). We love Astrid Lindgren and she’s written some lovely Christmas stories (also translated into German!) but I’m struggling to think of any others that we’ve read. I’ll remember this comment and have a look next time we’re in the library.
Thanks so much, Catherine, that’s very kind of you. And yes, I definitely agree re Astrid Lindgren. I’m half German, but based in Wales with my family, so I feel a bit out of touch when it comes to German children’s books, especially more recent ones.
This looks fab. So creative. And you’ve mentioned more series that bring back memories of my own childhood reading – Teddy Robinson and My Naughty Little Sister #readwithme
Thank you! We never remember to read the Christmas stories from the longer chapter books so it will be good to have a reminder to read them at the right time of year!
I love your suggestions for children’s stories. I do like to mark the seasons with different books.
Thank you! I’m looking forward to my daughter opening all the doors 🙂
What an amazing idea! Although I am simultaneously gobsmacked and impressed that you put that much work into it! I find wrapping actual Christmas presents hard enough, without adding to the workload!
I realise we don’t have many Christmas books – just The Grinch really! I always loved The Snowman and Raymond Briggs’ Father Christmas as a kid.
I did the colouring and the sticking during my daughter’s dancing class! It actually didn’t take that long once everything was printed out.
this is such a good idea – love it x
#readwithme
Thanks Sarah 🙂
I love this idea, this is the best way to count down to Christmas in my opinion! I hope you and your daughter have fun with it #readwithme
I hope we have fun too and by December I will probably have forgotten which book I have stuck behind each door (unless I read this post again)!
Some fabulous choices! My son loves reading so much. We have The Jolly Postman book but I didn’t know there was a Christmas version! Will need to add that to my list to buy for our Christmas Eve box x #TriedTested
I found it quite difficult buying The Jolly Christmas Postman at Christmas. I tried it for two years running and ended up ordering it in July!I hope that you manage to get a copy 🙂
Great ideas. I’m sure your daughter will enjoy the Christmas reads 🙂
#readwithme
Thanks Suz, Some of the books and stories are new to my daughter. I hope she enjoys them too 🙂
Oh wow what a fantastic idea! And what lovely books too – we have a few of those, though some lovely ideas for new ones too.
Thanks Sian. It was difficult to narrow down the list of which books I wanted to include 🙂
I love all the scenes that went with the books – what a brilliant idea. Love your advent calendar idea too – much easier than wrapping all the books! I’ve saved your list as well – it will help give me some inspiration for future Christmassy books to enjoy together 🙂
Thanks Louise. Wrapping 24 books took a lot longer than I thought last year! There are so many wonderful Christmas books, some of the ones on your list were unfamiliar to me too.
I have never heard of this but what a fab idea. Thank you for sharing X. #mmbc
I’ve not seen anybody else do one, it was an idea that I came up with last Christmas. It was really fun opening the doors to see which book we would read 🙂
We make our own advent calendar too. Also used to do a book a day type of advent, when my children were much younger. Why have I never thought to combine the two ideas? Genius. Love that the props that the little elves brought along too. Does bring it to life. #MMBC
I absolutely loved doing the Christmas and Snowy Advent Calendars (and the fact that my daughter didn’t know it was really me!). They took a bit of planning but it was well worth it to see the look on her face every morning 🙂
See I mentioned this in my post that I wasn’t doing an advent as such but just reading a different Christmas story each day, this will come in handy, thank you. #readwithme
It’s fun to open the doors to discover the book of the day 🙂
So lovely – look forward to seeing what is in store this year! 🙂 #readwithme
Thanks Kate. I’m working very hard on Story Snug’s Advent Calendar this week 🙂
What a great post Cath! I love it! I’m going to share my advent post asap – can I link to yours?
Thanks
Kim x #readwithme
Of course you can link your post to mine. I’m very flattered that you asked and look forward to reading yours 🙂