Christmas Book Advent Calendar & Free Printable Labels

The idea of a Christmas book advent calendar certainly isn’t a new one. It is a tradition that many families partake in and that my parents did for my brother and I when we were young. Each day in December we got to open a wrapped Christmas book and then we read it together that night. Sometimes there were new books, but usually they were books from past Christmases. Either way, I was always SO excited to receive our Christmas books each year, so I knew it was a tradition that I wanted to do with our son!

Since this is Henry’s first Christmas, we are starting from scratch with our Christmas book collection. Christmas books can cost $10-15 a book and we definitely didn’t want to spend several hundred dollars on this tradition! This post will share where we found our books for a low price, what books we got and free printable buffalo check labels to number your books.

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Where To Purchase Books

We purchased most of the books secondhand. Thrift stores tend to have a lot of holiday books and they usually cost less than a dollar! We also found inexpensive books at garage sales, Target dollar spot, Dollar Tree and had some donated by friends with older children. If you have school age children, Scholastic book orders often have inexpensive holiday books. You could even check out some books from the library! The good thing about getting secondhand books when your babies are young is that you don’t have to worry as much if a page is accidentally ripped by little hands 🙂

While the majority of the books came from thrift stores, we did get a few new books from Amazon. We decided that each year we will get Henry a few new books for his collection that are age appropriate and geared towards his interests. This way by the time he is old enough to understand how to treat books properly, he will have a nice collection. 

The Books We Chose

I spent a long time searching for Christmas books that were age appropriate and baby proof, but that Henry would continue to enjoy over the next several years. The new books that we decided to get for Henry this year are:

The Night Before Christmas Oversized Padded Board Book: The Classic Edition: This is a book we read every Christmas Eve growing up and we want to start the same tradition with Henry! There are many versions of this story but we chose this one because it has beautiful classic illustrations and is a high quality, large board book that should last for years!

Christmas Songs: Interactive Children’s Sound Book: Henry loves music and I think this cute book will be a great way to enjoy Christmas music with him each year. Each page has the lyrics and the buttons play the tunes!

The Itsy Bitsy Reindeer: An adorable board book that is a twist on the “Itsy Bitsy Spider”!

Jingle Bells: Christmas Sound Book: A simple story with cute pictures and sound buttons for baby to push.

You Are My Merry: This is such a sweet book about a mother’s love for her child. 

Other books that were found at a thrift store that I recommend:

Baby’s Christmas

Clifford’s First Christmas

The Spirit of Christmas: Nancy Tilman books are amazing and always so sweet; this one is no exception!

S is for Santa: I love the illustrations in this Christmas alphabet book! We have the Halloween version and Henry really liked it!

There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Bell!

Olive the Other Reindeer

Snowmen at Christmas

A Magical Christmas

The Gingerbread Boy

Room for a Little One: This is such a sweet version of the Christmas story that little ones can relate to and understand.

I found several books that illustrated song lyrics. These types of books are great for babies because they can be read OR sung to your little one. I know these books always hold Henry’s attention better! Here are the ones I found:

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Elvis Presley’s First Noel

Frosty the Snowman

The 12 Days of Christmas: This isn’t the version we have, but it looks like a cute version and it is a board book!

Up on the Housetop

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Free Printable Labels

After I gathered all of the books, I wrapped them and attached these numbered labels. Open the book with “1” on December 1st, and so on! The labels are in black and white so that you can print them on whatever color paper you like! I recommend printing on card stock, but regular printer paper will work too.

Hover or tap image to pin for later!