here's an idea.

I love Advent calendars and the countdown to Christmas. Since Carson was a brand new baby 

he has given his close friends a chocolate-filled Advent calendar every year for Christmas. 

Baby brother Slade joined the fun this past year. We love the Christmas season and all of the joy in celebrating the birth of our Savior. Here's a new tradition I'm excited to start and share...

I originally heard of this when my friend Jenny posted about it last year that I loved. 

I posted about her tradition a few days after Christmas but you may not have been in idea-mode then! Anyhow, I am so excited to get to borrow the idea for my boys this year. It requires a little hunting 

and gathering, so I thought if I shared it with you all on August 1st, you'd have exactly four months 

to prepare to do the same with your kiddos. {Thanks Jess for pinning a similar idea this week, 

it reminded me I need to keep gathering}...

Anyhow, the concept is simple... wrap 24 Christmas books individually. Each night of the month 

of December you let your kids unwrap a book and then read it as a family. I found this blog 

and she had some great ideas: number the books in the order you want them to be opened 

(for instance you may have a mixture of Santa stories, Nativity, Christmas crafts or traditions, etc. 

and it is fun to mix them up rather than get similar reads one after another)... so numbering them 

and letting your kids hunt for the next number would be fun and practical. I plan to put my books 

in a super cute oversized Santa bag we have... other ideas would be to put them in a pretty basket

 under your tree, or mix them in with other gifts and wrap them in a specific wrapping paper 

so your kids know which presents are their countdown books. 

It may not be in your budget to go out and buy 24 Christmas books all at once. 

That's why I was so glad to have read about Jenny's tradition right after Christmas last year. 

I've been gathering books from Half Priced Books, Zulily book sales, and other spots over the past 

8 months. One blogger had the great idea to search eBay for "Christmas book lot" -- you can score several great books at once for very little money. Books are always a worthwhile investment in my opinion and this is a tradition you can reuse year after year. Since they are seasonal and part of a tradition, I plan to pack them up each Christmas and re-wrap them for the following December 1st. 

That way, my kids aren't used to seeing them on the bookshelves throughout the year. 

Do you have some favorite Christmas stories from your childhood? 

Any must-haves I need to hunt down to have in our collection? 

I'd love to hear what your favorite stories are and incorporate them into our countdown.

Here's our stack so far... some of these we already had, and some I've picked up along the way. 

We are at 15 books and depending on what books we get and find between now 

and December 1st, I may take a few of these (Max & Ruby) out.

What do you think about this Christmas Countdown idea? I'd love to know if you plan to incorporate the tradition too... maybe we can do a link up during the month of December to show what our kids unwrapped and read each week. I think it's going to be so fun... some nights we'll do treats, 

Christmas cookies, screen printed t-shirts, Christmas pajamas, or hot chocolate. Obviously EVERY 

night can't be a big to-do... but it's a good excuse to gather around your Christmas tree 

as a family and read together. I cannot wait to begin this tradition at the Tichenor house!

{top image via}