Christmas Reading

Monday, November 9, 2015

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Christmas is my favorite holiday! I love everything about it! During this time I try to take time to read a special devotional or book with a Christmas theme to focus my heart for the upcoming season. I also love reading fiction set during the Christmas season during November and December. Here is a look at some of my favorite Christmas devotionals/books...



Ann Voskamp's The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas is a beautiful look at the family of Christ to lead your heart to Him during the Advent season. I  have gone through this book a couple of times and have loved it each time! Here is my review of it. The book comes with a free download of ornaments when you purchase it. Each day after reading the devotional section you place one of the ornaments on your tree. I have written a post on how to get the ornaments ready for your tree. You can check it out here.



Last year I did Candace's book, Jesus, Light of the World: Praying the Scriptures through Advent. In this book, she focuses on how Jesus is our light. You can order her book from Amazon here. Or you can download it from her site here. If you would like to read more about her devotional see my review on it.

This year my youngest son and I will probably read through Max Lucado's In the Manger: 25 Inspirational Selections for Advent which is a collection of devotionals for Advent from his various books. I LOVE the way Max writes! He is an artist with the written word.

This year during my personal Bible study time I am going to be using materials from She Reads Truth. "Born is the King" is their Advent study for 2015. I have used their website before and loved some of their studies, but this time I thought I would take the plunge and buy the book that goes with the study.

I also love reading Christmas fiction during this time. In the past I have read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Yes, we all know the story from movies, but have you ever read it? Dickens can be wordy, but A Christmas Carol is one of his shorter works.  Last year I read Liz Curtis Higgs' novella, A Wreath of Snow. It's a sweet story of love and forgiveness set in Scotland.



If you have kids (older elementary) and want to read something to them this season we LOVED Arnold Ytreeide's books for Advent! The stories are compelling and each day's reading leaves them clamoring for more! There is also a short devotional thought at the end of each day. Each story leads up to the birth of Christ. This year there is a new book out, Ishtar's Odyssey! I bought it even though we don't have young kids anymore. My husband and I plan to read it to each other this year. I know that sounds crazy, but these stories are that good!  Here are the others in the series:

Jotham's Journey
Bartholomew's Passage
Tabitha's Travels


So what are you reading this Christmas season? I would love to hear from you with some reading suggestions. Leave a comment as I need more reading options (especially in the fiction department) this season!

2 comments:

Tarissa said...

My family LOVES Arnold Ytreeide's advent books... we just found out about his new one this year, and we're itching to get our hands on it!

Let's see... I'm also planning to read a new release from Melody Carlson, The Christmas Joy Ride. Also looking forward to Advent in Narnia! And maybe a short story from classic author Robert Louis Stevenson, entitled Markheim.

I so enjoy reading good Christmastime books!

Debbie said...

Tarissa- Thanks for all the ideas! I am going to check out these titles!