Twelve Books of Christmas

The boys love this statue outside our local library

Like the good Catholics we are, we like to drag out our celebrations as long as we can. Last year we decided that we wanted a concrete way to celebrate each of the twelve days of Christmas with our kids, and what better way to do that than with more presents?? Why not let the unwrapping go on another two weeks? So each morning for the next twelve days, the boys got to take turns opening a numbered gift, and each morning that gift was... drumroll please... a book! Of course it was a book. (Have you noticed I'm a little obsessed with books?) But what made my heart sing was that every day, the boys were excited to open what they knew would be another book. 

This gift was my favorite part of Christmas shopping; I scoured book lists and blogs, I looked at the library and bookstores, I spent hours finding the perfect twelve books. And when they all arrived and I saw them stacked together... I was underwhelmed. Sure every one of them came highly recommended, and we have returned to them many times over the past year, but they weren't the perfect books. Don't get me wrong, the boys loved them, but I was left feeling like there were better books out there that I had yet to discover. Or maybe I tried so hard to pick great books that I forgot to pick books that were great for my children at that particular time.

Maybe it's an unrealistic expectation, but this year instead of trying to find the twelve most perfect picture books on the face of the earth, I want to find the twelve picture books that are perfect for Max, Lucian and Audrey. So that's where you come in. In all of my searching, the thing that was missing was advice from people I know and love who know and love children's literature (I'm looking right at you, Monica and Annie!) This is my plea: send me a list of your very favorite children's picture books, or your go-to book lists, and I will be forever grateful.