We stopped buying chocolate Advent calendars when we found our toddler in the corner of her bedroom surrounded by wrappers on the first day of December, some years ago. The following year we built an Advent calendar out of small jewelry boxes and filled it with little trinkets which the kiddos fought over. Last year we thought outside of the box and wrote out a calendar with a family activity for each night of December leading up to Christmas.

This year I wanted to top last year's Advent calendar and create something that not only would the kids be excited about but it also needed to be family centered. Luckily I stumbled across this blog post just in time. I was inspired. A book Advent calendar! Twenty-five wrapped books, one for each night - the last one to be opened on Christmas day.

While the kids were in school today I searched the house for any Christmas/winter themed books and collected a dozen or so. I called a neighbor and "swapped" some of our most read books for new-to-us books with her, but I was still a little short. After a trip to the dollar store and Half Price Books I finally had twenty-five books in total. (You can also try Paper Back Swap for free books)

Half Price Books had a great collection of seasonal books and I was thrilled to find books from all over the world. From left to right, a book from Trinidad about a little girl celebrating Christmas, a book about an Inuit Indian's journey to find Christmas spirit, and a book about Hanukkah that made me hungry for potato latkes. I added the book that I wrote "Wigilia: A Tale About a Polish-American Family on Christmas Eve" too.

I wrapped each book in dollar store wrapping paper and waited for the kids to get home from school to see their reactions. They noticed my pile and immediately ran to the calendar to see how many days were left until December 1st.

I have a feeling that this might become a tradition in our house.

What is your favorite winter themed book? I know I'm missing a lot of classics and I'm especially interested in discovering books from around the world.