Along with hauling down the boxes of Christmas ornaments and decorations from the attic each year, I also unpack our bin of Christmas books.  I decided this year to wrap up 24 books for a book advent. The kids have been having fun each day unwrapping the books and exclaiming, “I remember this book!” I thought that they might think some of the books that we’ve been reading for years were getting too childish to read, but they still got excited and have been loving re-reading books from our stash and hearing new books that I’ve introduced this year.

Since we don’t own 24 different Christmas books, here are some tips on how I’ve gathered a good stockpile for us to enjoy each year.

1. Get an early jump on requesting books from your library. I know for my library, there is always a L-O-N-G waiting list for the popular Christmas books.  I’ve been able to get a bunch of new titles from my library for our advent countdown that we have been excited to read for the first time.
2. I spend the year scouring used bookstores or online sites for Christmas books. I have found good deals at Wonderbook (an online used book store, which also happens to have three locations in my area). Last week I found several (hardback!) Christmas books on my list that were under $5 each….and they were BOGO 50% off. My kids thought I was crazy as I did a little happy dance in the store when I discovered these gems on the shelf for so cheap! I’ve also found great deals on used books on Ebay, Amazon and from the book sale selection at my local library. 
3. A trick I’ve learned is to add books to my Amazon cart and then move them to my “Saved for Later” section. Then when I check back in to my Amazon account, it will notify me when the book prices increase or decrease. It’s amazing how the prices fluctuate. Usually if I wait long enough I can get a book I want for a few dollars less then what it was originally priced at.
4. I bought some books for my kids (non-Christmas related) and added them into the mix with our advent countdown books. So, some days they open up an old book from our collection, a new Christmas book that I’ve purchased since the previous year, or a new (personal) book for them to keep.
   

This has been a fun new addition to our regular biblical advent calendar that we do each day in December. If you want to see what Christmas books we love, I’ve compiled a list of them here for you to browse. (You can also get to it easily by clicking the “Book-Lovers” tab at the top of my website.) I keep adding to our list as we come across new ones, so be sure to check back!