Happy Friday: Celebrate 25 Days of Christmas w/ Books
Sent from reader, Honey:
I wrapped up 25 books for “25 Days of Christmas.” My 3 year old son gets to pick a gift (book) every evening December 1st-25th. I chose books that were both old and new! This is a great way to spend some quality time and encourage reading.
HAPPY FRIDAY!
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What a great, frugal idea! especially if you use books you already have or maybe even library books (make sure to open those first because fines aren’t frugal!), all you have to pay for wrapping paper.
This is hilarious, I can not believe the coincidence! Today, as we were wrapping the books I thought that would make a a great Happy Friday, but we were so busy I didnt even remember to take the picture! My books for last year looked as neat as yours, but my children are now 4 and almost 6 so this year they got to wrap the books! This is how we save on this amazing idea:
1. I went to a couple local second hand stores that have tons of books. At Savers only I found more than 20 to choose from! Since I realized I had so many options I got a few from Goodwill and a few from Salvation Army, they are ALL about Christmas. I ended up paying less than 50 cents per book. We also wrap our favorite Christmas books from the library, we just make sure those are opened first so that they can be returned on time. We ended up having so many that wrapped them in pairs, especially short stories. I got many that were religious, so I try to alternate them.
2. Since I didnt want to use new wrapping paper, I got a bunch of old gift bags from the basement. I had also been saving the brown paper and brown bags,e even used newspapers! I let the kids decorate the paper too. With a sharpie, they write the numbers from 1-25 (although this year we wrapped 27 since we wanted to start today). This is great practice for pre-school/kindergarten age kids too.
3. We put them inside a regular box that I wrapped with the prettiest Christmas paper, it has lasted me 3 years! We also use pretty paper for the books for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.
The best part is that, each time the kids want to know “how many days until Christmas”, they seat by the box and count the books. They look forward every night to unwrap a new book that we are going to read at bedtime. This has been the biggest hit in this case, such a win-win tradition! 🙂
We do this during Advent and my kids love it. Thanks for sharing
Do you used religious books or secular ones or both?we would like to focus on the religious aspect a swells the chubby red suit guy:)
We only use books that teach our kids the true meaning of Christmas for this
Wow, what a fabulous idea. I have been looking for just such an item to do with my 3-year old daughter. LOVE LOVE LOVE! Thank you for sharing.
I am kind of obsessed with those bags. My sister-in-law and I are both owl fanatics.
It’s a bag from Thirty-One gifts…It’s only available in November……www.mythirtyone.com/graves11
I’m doing the same thing! Our elf on the shelf is bringing a new book every day for him to open. I bought most at Sam’s for really good prices!
Our elf brings one each day too!!
We do this as well! This year we have reached 50+ books so both the kiddos can open one each night. At the end of the Christmas season I store them all away in a tote and take them out again the next Christmas season. I also add a few new ones each year too. A great way to get enough books is to ask family if they want to contribute any of the books. My kids love that some of the books come from their grandparents too!
That is so great, education and quality time is what our children need. They remember the memories they made not the toys they got.
LOVE LOVE LOVE that she used a thirty-one tote for storage!!!!
http://www.mythirtyone.com/stephaniebarrett
http://www.facebook.com/groups/bagginitwithstephanie/
Started this last year when my daughter was 2! She Loved it! Will be doing it this year as well. It is fun to buy more advanced books as she gets older. Soon she will be reading them!
Love it! Target dollar spot usually has some children’s books
Tell us about that owl tote?
It looks like a Thirty-one bag
It is a thirty-one bag and it was only available in November:(
I wanted to know the same thing. It’s so cute! Where did you get the tote from?
Great looking Medium Utility Tote from Thirty One 😉
Oh! Is that where the bag is from? I’m going to have to check them out!
These totes are no longer available but I have a lot left and other options. Please contact me for all my Black Friday deals. http://www.facebook.com/groups/bagginitwithstephanie
Great idea! I love to buy kids’ books from Goodwill, Salvation Army stores and garage sales throughout the year. The prices are so much better than buying new, and I’m usually able to find books that are still in excellent condition.
Great idea to do for my grandkids for next year. Thanks!
I love it!
The owl tote was a Thirty-one medium ulitilty tote that was the special for Nov up to a couple days ago! They were supper cute!
What was the special on it?
We started doing this last year and it was a big hit with my son! If you hit up your local library right before Thanksgiving, people usually aren’t thinking “Christmas” yet and you can get a great selection of books. We deliver them under the tree on the morning of December 1st and he loves picking out a “new” book each night!
What a great idea!!! If anybody is looking for inexpensive books Goodwill has tons! They are usually priced between .59 and $1.99 🙂
We do this too!
I did this last year when my daughter was 1. I can’t wait to find more Christmas bogs to add to our collection! Its a great way to get the kids involved with reading.
We did this last year. The kids loved it!
Coolest idea ever!! I am stealing that. And love that 31 bag. So cute.
saw the idea last year but didn’t have enough time to get the books. This year I got most of the books from goodwill for $.25-$.50 at the 50% off sales. My son will be so happy as he is getting better at reading and he will be able to open a gift every day.
I love this idea. Thanks for sharing.
I love this! I would love to know some of your favorite books to include stack!
We’re pulling ours out of the attic tomorrow, but the main themes we have are about St. Nicholas, the Nativity, history of things like the candy cane. Most of ours came from after Christmas sales at Christian book stores. It’s been fun collecting them through the years and the kids opening them throughout Advent.
that’s cute
I’m running some Black Friday specials for freebies with 31 totes similar to this! Message me at socialiteshaney@gmail.com and I’ll honor them all weekend!
What are you offering & do you have that bag? jnizich@yahoo.com
Join my group I can help ya out :). http://Www.facebook.com/groups/bagginitwithstephanie I also have a 12 days of Christmas sale!!!
Emailing you Jessica!
I did this too! In October, Scholastic had a deal where you could buy 50 books for $50 (valued at over $300). I did the 25 books of Christmas for two families, so the 50 books worked out just perfect!
We also did this last year and will be doing it again. We put our books inside a plastic tote with a lid so we were able to store all of the books after Christmas last year. Worked great!
We have an awesome collection of books from garage sales! I never pay more than 10cents per little book (you know- the 5 page no word kind of books), 25cents per nice books (stelluna, Dr. Seuss, etc) and 50c per chapter books (though those are usually a quarter too!). All of our books are like new!!! I also buy nice books that are slightly flawed (gift message inside front cover, a dog ear corner or two, etc) or pristine duplicates for donations to the school, library, etc. It is awesome. I always save 25 holiday themed books to surprise the kids with for the above mentioned tradition! We are not religious so there are a lot of Santa Christmas books but there are also Hanukah books, Christ Christmas books, Kwanzaa books, etc to give the kids a good dose of culture! Love it so much
Such a great idea! Thank u for sharing, love it!
I started this with my oldest daughter when she was two. Now all of my kids love the big stack of Christmas books so much they won’t let me wrap them anymore! 🙂 Our big box of Christmas books is the first thing our kids dig into when we pull out the decorations, and our oldest is 13 now!
Ur tree is beautiful
I started doing something similar after seeing the idea on Hip2Save last year. I bought a bunch of muslin drawstring bags (8″x10″ I think) so I can re-use them every year (and so I don’t have to wrap all those extra items). Most nights are books but I also mixed in a few other quiet family activities, like a winter-y jigsaw puzzle and some simple wooden games. I try to put in a little bonus along with the book, like on the first she’s getting dolly&me Christmas pajamas…other nights have snow globes or a jingle bell bracelet (re-used from last year) or a bit of candy or a packet of cocoa. A lot of our books are from my childhood (free!) but I’ve also picked up some from thrift stores and post-holiday clearance sales. I try to mix up the traditional stories (Rudolph, Jingle Bells) with favorite characters (Barbie, Disney Princess) and I save The Night Before Christmas for the 24th.