Unwrapped Book Advent Calendar

I love doing book advent calendars. It's a fun way to incorporate some literacy into the Christmas preparations and a great way to be sure we make the time to read our Christmas favorites.

We did a book tree advent last year. It made a cute display and the kids loved unwrapping a book each night, but the problem was that some of our favorite Christmas books weren't available until a day or two before Christmas. (Technically we could have read the books when they're wrapped this way, but it ruined the surprise.)

Last year's book advent

This year I was determined to incorporate literacy into our advent calendar while leaving the Christmas books available for the entire month. Instead of wrapping each book, I made a simple scroll with the name of each book. (The bonus is that you can do repeats if you don't have 24 different Christmas books.) A slip of paper would work just as well, but these little scrolls make it seem more special and they're easy to make. Cut two lengths of drinking straws and a strip of scrapbook paper. Tape a straw to each end of the paper and roll toward the center, securing it with some string. Now they're ready to tuck into whatever type of advent calendar you choose.

I was inspired by this advent calendar at Crafts Unleashed. I really like those little paper mache boxes. I used 23 round and one star shaped for my version of the advent calendar. I attached number cutouts I found at the craft store.

Then I stacked them into a Christmas tree shape.

Because the number didn't come out quite right, I have 3 presents under the Christmas tree.

Each container has a scroll with our Christmas book for the day written on it. I also included little trinkets like Christmas erasers and stickers that I tried to match to the book.

Jingle bells for The Polar Express

And all the Christmas books are piled in our basket, ready to be read any time.

Some of our favorite Christmas books:
Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood
The Little Crooked Christmas Tree by Michael Cutting
Christmas Tree Farm by Ann Purmell
Where, Oh Where, Is Santa Claus? by Lisa Wheeler
A Christmas Tree for Pyn by Olivier Dunrea
The First Christmas by Allia Zobel-Nolan
The Very Snowy Christmas by Diana Hendry
Olive, the Other Reindeer by Vivian Walsh
Santa Duck by David Milgrim
The Twelve Days of Christmas by Hilary Knight
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
Christmas Angels: Read and Share by Gwen Ellis
Rock-a-bye Christmas by Matt Novak
Not Enough Beds: A Christmas Alphabet Book by Lisa Bullard
One Shining Star: A Christmas Counting Book by Anne Vittur Kennedy
Christmas Mice! by Bethany Roberts
Where's Prancer? by Syd Hoff
Santa's Toy Shop by Al Dempster
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett
The Story of Christmas by Patricia A. Pingry
Reindeer Christmas by Mark Kimball Moulton
Christmas for the Snowmen by Wolfram Hanel
The Littlest Christmas Tree by R. A. Herman
Are You Grumpy, Santa? by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis
A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree by Colleen Monroe
Corduroy's Christmas Surprise by Don Freeman
Mooseltoe by Margie Palatini
The First Night by B.G. Hennessy