Christmas Books for Children

I am posting some children's Christmas books that we like to read at our house this time of year. I have always switched my children's books that we leave in a large wicker basket in our family room, to match whatever holiday or season we are in. Because I was a PreK Special Education teacher for 8 years with a focus on language arts/reading/writing, I have a large collection of excellent books for children that I have purchased over the years. Many of them I purchased for my classroom so I was able to bring them home with me when I stopped teaching full time. Because both girls are voracious readers, they also have a large collection of good books that we have purchased over the last 14 years. Here is a partial list of what we consider to be excellent books for children ages 3-12 at this time of year. I know that since my youngest must read aloud to an adult at least 20 minutes per week as per school requirement, she will be choosing a couple of these books this weekend! Even my teenager still likes to read through them on Christmas Eve! (+ denotes Christian material)

• +The Christmas Story by Moria Butterflied (based on Luke 2)
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Robert L. May (the original; get the movie, too!)
  
• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg (a Caldecott Medal winner; get the dvd, too!)
• +The Pine Tree Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs
• The Nutcracker (based on the classic story by E.T.A. Hoffman) (includes a cd!)
• Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn Buehner (a fun read for xmas eve!)
• +The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado (we like this on xmas eve, followed by some Scriptures)
• Christmas at the Top of the World by Tim Coffey
  

Those are just a few books that are in our family room reading basket. We have more in our living room basket as well although they tend to be for adults or older children. Books like The Christmas Shoes, The Traditions of Christmas, Christmas Ideals, Sitting by my Laughing Fire (not specifically xmas but we like to read the poems this time of year), A Christmas Carol (by Charles Dickens of course!)
So, around our house this weekend, we plan on getting some laundry done, some cleaning before the grandparents arrive on Monday, and some last minute baking done, as well as Claire's party at BumbleBeads this afternoon!
...but...our favorite thing will be to curl up with a good book and just read...and that is what we will be doing tonite and tomorrow nite! Happy Reading!