10 Great Books to Read with Your Kids in December

Everyone experiences Christmas a little different, and every family is different. Why not give your child the gift of increased vocabulary and intelligence by reading to them, in addition to giving them the gift of seeing some of the many perspectives of the holidays offered in the variety of storybooks available? There are so many great books out there that will delight and excite your children while encouraging them to be better people at the same time.

Reading books at Christmastime is one of our favorite activities, along with baking cookies, decorating for Christmas, singing Christmas songs and doing a variety of fun crafts. In fact, just after Thanksgiving we couldn’t wait to go pull out all of our Christmas books in the garage and start reading them. I love how excited he is about reading!

I wanted share some of absolute favorites with you so you could be reading right along with us. Check them out below! I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

The beautiful illustrations and captivating poetry in this book will bring you into the magical world of snow that a little girl and her family are enjoying this winter. They talk about the feelings snow brings, the beauty you can see, the pleasure of playing in its white masses and all other wonderful experiences it brings them every year. We love the snow we are enjoying this year right outside our door. My son waits for it every year.

It’s so easy to get focused on all of the wrong things this time of year. Adults are all wrapped up in decorating, parties and buying presents for friends, family, and especially their kids. Kids are drowning in school parties, candy and cookies, and thinking about what they want to get for Christmas. What if Christmas wasn’t all about the gifts and treats? This is a great book for thinking about the true meaning of the holidays with your children.

This is a really sweet story about a bunch of animals that don’t want their good friend bear to miss out on Christmas and all of the fun traditions that go with it. So they wake him up to help them prepare for the holidays, and keep him awake to celebrate with them. You’re going to love the ending. We loved naming all of the different kinds of animals and talking about how they take care of their families during the winter months.

This sweet rhyming story tells about Mr. Willowby and his Christmas tree. The tree may have been too tall for his home, but with the simple action of chopping off the top and throwing it away, this little tiny tree became the Christmas tree for many an animal along its journey, bringing Christmas blessings to many. We really enjoyed reading this book together and talking about how we could bring blessings to the lives of others in simple ways, like donating our unused toys and clothes.

This is a sweet story told, in rhyme, by a little boy dreaming about snowmen. After building his own snowman one day, he began wondering how snowmen celebrate the holidays. In his dreams that night he comes up with all kinds of fun adventures snowmen and their families go on while everyone else sleeps at night. Have you ever wondered what snowmen do while you’re sleeping? I love the imagination and creativity this simple story encourages.

This is a beautiful story full of adorable pictures of a precious little girl determined to find Santa Claus so she could become one of his elves. Along the way, she helps others prepare for the holidays, gifts wonderful gifts and letters, and encounters many animals that she befriends. By the end of the story, she learns that she was one of Santa’s elves all along, by just being kindhearted, generous, thoughtful and loving to everyone in her life. It’s a great book for talking about these wonderful characteristics around the holidays.

This great story gives even the smallest person who feels like they can’t possibly make a difference in the world, the hope that their actions can change the lives of everyone around them in positive ways by being kind, thoughtful, generous and selfless. This author shares the true story of Christmas while also illuminating the meaning of Christmas on every page. In this story a small mouse brings hope to the whole village when the parson gets sick and cancels the Christmas Eve service.

What a great book! These great authors put together a fantastic story combining all of the simple fairy tales we all know as the postman travels around delivering Christmas cards and letters to Santa from the various characters. Your kids will love getting to pull all of the letters out of the envelopes themselves and reading the Christmas cards and letters to Santa with you. This is a great start to helping your kids write their own Christmas cards this season!

The author guides you through the adventure of learning to give as Santa invites all of the children of the world to focus not on receiving during the holidays, but on being a blessing to others. The sweet kids in the book learn how to help others, and demonstrate compassion and kindness in every area of their lives. At the end of the book, Santa thanks each child for the huge difference they can make in their own lives every day and offers an official certificate to give your child.

This incredible book not only walks your children through the true story of Christmas with beautiful illustrations, bible verses and prayers, but it takes them back to the very beginning of creation to show them that God has always been here and has always had a plan for the world through his son Jesus. This one has to be our absolute favorite book to read every Christmas and gets pretty worn out.

I’m sure by checking these out on Amazon you’re going to find so many more that you love and want for your kids. If you don’t feel like you have the resources to take advantage of all of the great Christmas books you love, consider asking family to buy them for your kids for Christmas. You can pack them away when you take down your decorations at the end of the year, and make it a tradition to pull them out first and start reading them next year.

Your kids are going to be so excited to read them next year as they were brand-new at Christmas this year. What a great way to get your kids excited about reading! We’ve been doing this for just about every holiday and season to teach our little ones about the different times of year and the world around them. For holiday specific books, we tuck them away when the holiday is over and pull them back out the next year.

This keeps their bookshelves from overflowing, gives them something fun to look forward to each holiday, and makes the books both brand-new each year and wonderfully familiar. If you’d like some great books for the fall season, you should check out my great book lists for October and November!

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