Book Series Guest Post: The Magical Box

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Thanks to my lovely sister-in-law Jeni for providing this post on a wonderful family reading tradition!

By Jeni
We have a magical box living in our house, it does not appear to be enchanted or even remotely interesting. It sits on the top shelf of my children's closet in the back, looking battered and gathering dust. But every time I pull this box out my children excitedly crowd around me waiting to see what thrilling thing may come out of this fascinating box! The inside of this box is filled to the brim with books, not just books but stories filled with enthralling tales that stimulate every child's mind. Each book is a hidden treasure with stories rich and imaginative, for these tales do not sit on their everyday bookshelf, they are special because they only come out for holidays. As a mother I love reading and oh what fun it is to read holiday stories that are full of magical tales that create a special festive spirit. 

A couple of weeks before a given holiday I bring out the books and put them on a special decorated table. Every night we read from these books, it creates so much excitement and anticipation. It is very compelling because most of the time they do not remember the story so it is like reading a brand new book! They listen so intently and it never fails to get them excited about the upcoming holiday. I have found this to be a wonderful tradition in our family. It focuses on the holiday yet helps them enjoy the love of reading.

I thought I would share two of my absolute favorite Christmas books.
Merry Christmas, Big Hungry Bear by: Don and Audrey Wood.

My mother-in-law gave this book to my daughter when she was quite young. I thought it was just another run of the mill board book but it has become a favorite.This is a board book, typically for toddlers, but it teaches a beautiful story about sharing and spreading the
Christmas cheer to those who seem to least deserve it. Even though my children are not toddlers anymore this is still a favorite book that they request for me to read to them around the Christmas holidays.
Christmas Magic by: Michael Garland

This past Christmas season I was at the library with my children, it was pretty crazy, they literally picked out 40 Christmas books for us to check out. Every night we would read a few of them and to be honest most of them did not strike me as a book I would want to own. They were sweet and fun but not worthy of my magical box. Then I read the
book, Christmas Magic, it brought back all those wonderful magical feelings associated with Christmas as a child. I literally felt like I was transported back to my childhood and experienced the wonderment of Christmas.
Isn't that such a sweet tradition? I need to increase our holiday book collection!
Images 1 & 2

2 comments:

  1. We have a similar tradition. My kids look forward to each holiday too because we get to get out the books that go along with the holiday.

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