Christmas Reading Traditions

I laugh every time I watch the movie The Proposal. I laugh for a lot of reasons but especially when Sandra Bullock’s character Margaret shares that she reads Wuthering Heights every Christmas. On first thought, there are not many books that I can think of that make me feel less festive. Wuthering Heights is an excellent book but not really what gets me in the holiday spirit!

I love traditions and I am lucky enough to be in a family who has always had strong traditions and honored them. One of my favourite Christmas-time traditions is to read a lot of good holiday books. I read Jeff Guinn’s The Autobiography of Santa Claus every year. I have read it every year for as long as I can remember. It’s a fun story that follows a young boy who becomes Saint Nicholas and throughout time becomes a much bigger icon. He also acquires some interesting friends along the way, including the Wright Brothers, who help him learn to fly a sleigh. 

I grew up with three siblings and a mom who loved to read so we were lucky to have lots of read aloud time! So some of my favorite Christmas stories are told in picture books. One of my all time favorites is Grandfather’s Christmas Tree by Keith Strand and illustrated by Thomas Locker. It tells the beautiful story of a young family at Christmas and their survival in rural Colorado. Funnily enough, we never grew up reading The Polar Express so the whole phenomenon is puzzling to me! 

My siblings and I also laugh every year about a book that we have heard and read our whole life. The Dutch author Dick Bruna wrote a multitude of books and he is the one who wrote about Nijntje, the cute rabbit that has now taken the world by storm under the name Miffy. The book we read together every Christmas is his book The Christmas Story. And we don’t laugh at the story, as it’s a beautiful book and tells the story of Jesus' birth in an accessible way with simple but amazing illustrations. We laugh because the original Dutch version has so much more detail than the English translation. The Dutch version details what all the three kings are wearing, how much the angels sing and more. Just by looking at the same page side by side in each book, the English version has so few words. Cracks me up every time. 

I read a new Christmas book this year which was Christmas With The Queen by Hazel Gaybor and Heather Webb. I thought it was a fun read but also had good emotional depth. I always enjoy a behind the scenes view of a famous or popular person. Even if that view is fictional! I like the idea of reminding ourselves that those are real people too. It’s one of the reasons I am loving the Taylor Swift docuseries! 

I know that the end of the year is often used as a time to summarize the closing year and don’t fret, my 2025 wrapped is coming! But I’m too type A to begin before the year has actually come to an end. What if I finish a book on the 31st? If I summarize things before then, I might miss out on that data!