Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Christmas Traditions: Stories

Memorized stories are an important part of Christmas for us. We always spend family scripture study in December re-memorizing the Christmas story in Luke 2. This year everyone except for me has also been learning the story in Matthew (I thought they would lose interest; instead they're almost done and I haven't started). We have several illustrated versions of Twas the Night Before Christmas but we mostly leave them on the shelf and recite it to each other.

We read aloud at Christmas too. We left most of our Christmas picture books back in Florida (hard-backs). But some we have some of them with us, and we're putting Emma Lucy's e-reader to good use. These are some of our favorites:

Silver Packages, by Cynthia Rylant
almost everything in the Connie Willis collection Miracle and Other Christmas Stories
The Kid Hangs up His Stocking, by Jacob Riis
How Santa Claus Came to Simpsons's Bar, by Bret Harte
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, by Barbara Robinson


And, hands-down, our all-time, no contest favorite; the one we've already read at least three times this year; the one my children quote phrases from year-round:

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas.

What are your favorite Christmas read-alouds?

4 comments:

alicia said...

We have copied this tradition of memorizing Luke 2. This is our second year and I was surprised that Rowan was able to retrieve some of what she memorized last year. It is a wonderful way to discuss the story of Christ's birth each day. Thanks for a great idea.

Annette said...

I'm glad it's working for you. I imagine Rowan has it pretty much word-perfect now, knowing her. I think I have a harder time than any of our kids in memorizing, but I can see that I'm going to have to start on Matthew too.

Nathan said...

And the "Silver Packages" book! Rowan often asks me if it would be okay to read the special storybook that my big sister got me. "You know, the one about the doctor..."

Annette said...

I'm glad you like Silver Packages. It's David's absolutely favorite Christmas picture book, but we left it in Florida. Hard-bound. He told me he was thinking about it last week while he walked around town and it made him get teary-eyed just thinking about it.