A Christmas Carol, Gift of the Magi, If You’re Missing Baby Jesus, The Christmas Tapestry, The Burglar’s Christmas, The Birth, The Luke Chronicles, Cosmic Christmas.….these are just a few of our favorite “young teens and up” stories that we read or listen to at Christmas. Just because our kids are all over twelve doesn’t mean we have to stop reading aloud at Christmas time. (As a matter of fact, we still read a favorite Christmas short story on our family decorating night and another one on our family Christmas Eve—with twelve adult kids!)

(Check out my Annotated Christmas Book List with our favorites, descriptions, and ratings!)

Below are a couple of links to books I use and love. I am an affiliate for Amazon.com. If you click on the links below I will earn a small commission. Thank you for your support of this blog!

If you’ve gotten out of the habit of reading aloud and aren’t sure how the family will respond to asking them to join for Christmas stories, here are some suggestions:

1) Choose a very short story (like one included in this post!). Don’t go for long and drawn out when adding a new tradition.

2) Add it to something you already do. For example, add it to Christmas Eve dinner or Christmas morning rolls or driving to Grandma’s.

3) Choose something fun at first. The two stories included in this post are fun ones to begin with–a traditional, well-known story AND a contemporary spin-off of it. I think your family will like them!

4) Go back to an old favorite! Don’t be afraid to pull out an old picture book (see annotated list above!) that you all loved around the Christmas tree in years gone by! Christmas is a time for family, togetherness, and memory making. Bringing out an old favorite picture book (Tale of Three Trees or Jingle the Christmas Clown) might be the perfect way to start reading Christmas stories again!

5) Keep it short. When we are adding something to our holiday get-togethers, we start out short until we see how everybody likes it. I have several collections of Christmas stories with short stories. One of these might be perfect for your Christmas dinner reading!

6) Do a picture book for the littles–and watch the biggies gather around!

7) Put lovely Christmas coffee table books out during the holiday season! This will draw people into your read aloud time.

8) Use audio stories while your crew wraps gifts, decorates the tree, or makes goodies. This is a good way to bring Christmas stories back into the “older kids/adult kids” home. Don’t bombard them–just say, “Hey, I found this audio site to listen to stories. Let’s listen to our old favorite, Gift of the Magi, while we drop buckeyes. (Or get sentimental on them and bring out some Adventures in Odyssey Christmas episodes like “Pokenberry Christmas”!

I hope this week finds you celebrating the Christ child, creating new memories with your family, and reading stories! 😉

Read a version of the classic “Scrooge” and one of the modern “Scrooge” here or by tapping on the image below.

P.S. What is your favorite “older kids'” Christmas story? Did your crew like today’s “modern Scrooge” story?

The post Traditional and Contemporary Scrooge Stories (2 Free Christmas Stories!) appeared first on Character Ink.

Through the years, our reading time went down to two to four hours a day. And we all look back fondly on those days—even my thirty-four and thirty year olds still talk about all of that read aloud time. And how wonderful it was to have that much time to read and learn together.

Some of our favorite readings were definitely Christmas stories, traditions, song books, collections, and more. We even increased our reading time during the holidays (not sure how!)!

My bookshelves are still full of our favorite Christmas stories—and each year when our children, ages eighteen to thirty-four, come to decorate for Christmas and for our Christmas Eve party, we always pull out some of the collections of stories and read one or two aloud.

So it’s only fitting that I pass on some of the titles to young mamas who want great books to read at Christmas time—via The Annotated Christmas Book List for Families!

From the forward:

“Different ones have asked for more read aloud ideas, especially my very favorites, so I thought I would list them by age and by category (i.e. “Bible-related”; traditions; devotional; etc.) with three stars by my “very-most-favorite-if-we-only-read-a-handful-of-christmas-books-this-year-this-would-be-one-ofthem”!
Hope this helps you as you prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ with your sweet children.
Note: Many of the books on this list make for wonderful devotionals for anybody—not just for read alouds!

Key:

★★★Wouldn’t want to go a Christmas without it

★★Great

★Good enough for my list! 🙂

Note: I have included “out of print” ones because you can often pick them up used or at the library.”

Feel free to pass the link to this list along. I would love to bless many families with our amazing Christmas book list.

Love and hope,
Donna

Click on the picture below to download your FREE copy of The Annotated Christmas Book List 🙂

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(Subscribe to the newsletter to receive our Freebie Fridays–including one of our December 2015 ones, Annotated Christmas Stories booklet.)

One of the recent Christmas stories that I have shared was one of our student’s version of The Gift of the Magi (original story by O’ Henry). That is a popular story about the true meaning of giving—and the selflessness in putting others’ desires ahead of our own.

In my Meaningful Composition series of writing books for students, I have a type of project called “the twice-told tale” in which students rewrite a classic story in a different setting with different characters. This is a popular assignment, and we love seeing students’ creativity through this project.

One student in particular had a somewhat comical, modern twist on O’Henry’s tale that I think families with teens and young adults would especially get a kick out of…so here it is, Michaela Miller’s spin on The Gift of the Magi. In this twist, our student has her characters doing the opposite of what O’Henry’s characters did—they sell the other person’s greatest possession in an effort to hurt the other person, not bless the other person. However, the results were not what either one expected….

The Gift of the Magi: Retold

Eight hundred and eighty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. That was the sale price of Tracey Jepson’s 55 inch Samsung LED HD TV. Camped outside of Best Buy one year on Black Friday, she tore through the doors and beat her way through crowds to lay her hands on man’s greatest invention.
Anyone brave enough to try to pry it from her claws would have savagely lost their arms. There was nothing Tracey was more passionate about than her soap operas- except maybe the hatred she felt for her husband.

Tracey couldn’t remember the last time she and Erik had been close to each other. She couldn’t remember why she had married him. What she did know was that their favorite pastimes clashed magnificently, and spurred an ongoing war between the two.

Erik’s most beloved possession was his electric guitar. A Gibson Custom Les Paul 1959 Murphy Electric guitar with Bigsby Aged Sunburst. He came home every day from work, locked himself in his cave, and spewed earsplitting squeals and screeches until bed time. Nothing drove Tracey crazier. Especially since the painful noise made it difficult to hear her favorite soap operas. Oftentimes, she would turn the television up louder, causing Erik to complain about interference with his concentration and Zen. The night continued as a competition to see who could be louder, finally ending with a house that was a battleground of cacophony.

With one arm lazily propping her head, Tracey sighed and flipped through the channels absentmindedly. With nothing good on, she tossed the remote aside and gazed through the window. Snow was falling with peaceful grace, reminding Tracey of that annoying holiday that comes once a year: Christmas.

Early on in their marriage she used to take great pride and pleasure from buying Erik gifts. She would spend hours looking for the perfect present. A guitar stand. A new tuner. A spider capo. And she always basked in the anticipation of what he would get her.

Once they realized how much they disliked each other, Christmas was more like a bitter pill. He put no thought into her gift, so she put none in his.

Around 5:15, the door opened, letting in the frigid snow and Erik. Tracey sauteed onions in a
pan and the delicious smell of garlic and rosemary chicken wafted from the oven. A small candle of hope flickered up in Tracey that Erik would notice her effort.

“Hello.” said Erik.

“Hello. How was work?”

“It was good,” he said blandly and tossed his suitcase in a chair before hanging up his coat and disappearing to his room.

The small candle of hope was immediately snuffed, and Tracey chided herself for entertaining the possibility that Erik might notice her. And her heart took its normal stony form once again.

When Erik stepped into his music cave, he could already feel the stress leaving him. As he hooked a chord from his guitar to his amp, he tried not to dwell on what he had done to make Tracey so cold.
He provided for her. He bought her stupid TV. She much preferred that inanimate object over him, and the thought was painful. Erik grabbed his pick and began his evening routine: numbing himself by getting lost in music.

That evening after supper, Tracey curled up on the couch for her favorite hour of the day: the next episode of These Days of Our Lives. Why couldn’t Erik be romantic like Dani’s husband? Always buying flowers, smothering her with gifts, and working on his six pack? This thought took a sharp turn to pure anger when Erik’s guitar hit a long squealing note that stopped her from hearing an important line in the show. Two can play at that game, she thought, and turned the volume up to one hundred.

In response, Erik’s amplifier started blasting so loud the china was shaking in its cabinets.

Tracey had had enough. This Christmas she would buy him a gift and put in lots of thought. A plot that would end the aggravating noisy, turmoil.

Tracey and Erik went to bed early on Christmas Eve. She lay wide awake until she was convinced by Erik’s even breathing that he was asleep. Carefully and quietly, she got out of bed, slipping on boots and gloves before stealthily exiting the bedroom. Her first stop was Erik’s music cave where she glanced around until her eyes fell upon her unlucky victim: the Gibson guitar. She packed it up and stole from the house like a sly thief. She drove to Guitar Center and sold the guitar for close to ten thousand dollars. She hadn’t realized how valuable it was but managed to force down the small pang of guilt when she remembered how much angst this object had caused her.

“Would you like to look at our Epiphone selection?” asked the tatted-up owner.

“I would like…” Tracey thought for a moment. What was something she could buy Erik that would seem like a gift but actually solve her problem? What was an instrument he couldn’t play or annoy her with?

“Where are your ukeleles?” she blurted.

A ukelele! Of course! Perfect. It can’t be hooked up to an amplifier, and Erik doesn’t know how to play it. Tracey chose one adorned with tacky blue and white Hawaiian flowers and eight strings just to be safe. She bought the most expensive one just to get under his skin.

Tracey drove home gleefully and stumbled through the door exhausted. She placed the wrapped present under the tree, next to a small rectangular box with a bow.

Erik’s present for me, thought Tracey bitterly. It’s probably more Soft Scrub and spatulas.

The room was so dark she had to find her way by memory before sliding under the covers next to Erik and dreaming about tattoos.

When Tracey awoke the next morning, the bed covers were open like a lip, revealing the empty spot next to her. Erik was clearly awake. She could smell bacon, eggs, and toast.

Rubbing her eyes, she trudged in a sleepy stupor to the living room. She first spotted Erik on the couch eating. The her eyes darted to the empty wall in front of him. Her pupils dilated in horror.

The TV was gone.

“What- what…?

“Tracey…”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

Erik looked at her defiantly. “I disposed of a mind-rotting irritant to get you your Christmas
present.”

“You did- you did- what?” Her hands were on her hips and her head jutted out accusatorily.

“I had to be able to afford you present,” he said simply.

Fury overtook her when she realized she had done the same thing.

“You’re just trying to get back at me!” she shouted.

“Get back at you?” he barked, obviously confused.

His fake bewilderment made her livid.

“Yes. For selling your guitar!”

“YOU SOLD MY GUITAR?” So he didn’t know.

“For- your- Christmas present,” she hissed, jabbing a finger in his chest.

His eyes flashed, then almost in a whisper he spoke, “Well, then, we better like our presents.”

“Yes!” She wailed hysterically. “We better.” She grabbed her box and tore viciously at the wrapping.

She slipped her hands between the box flaps and pulled so hard the box split in half. Something silky spilled to the ground.

Tracey froze and stared at the pile. Her eyes flickered to Erik then back to the blue silk. Slowly, her fingers clasped the fabric and pulled it up to eye level, revealing a knee length party dress. Most would have found the dress unattractive, but this wasn’t any dress.

This dress was the dress that Dani had worn on the first episode of These Days of Our Lives. This was priceless! This was…

“The best Christmas present I could have asked for.” Tracey clutched the dress to her heart and started to tear up.

“Tracey, why are you crying?” asked Erik, placing a loving hand on her shoulder.

“Just open your present and you’ll understand.”

Erik took the remaining package from under the tree and held it gingerly. He slowly tore the
wrapping and slid the tacky blue ukelele from its case.

He just stared. Tracey’s heart plummeted when she realized what she had done. She had sold her husband’s most treasured item for a selfish, petty reason.

“I’m so sorry,” Tracey sobbed.

Erik’s face shot up, but instead of disappointment or anger, his eyes were full of compassion. Then a boyish grin spread over his face.

“How did you know I could play the ukelele?” he asked.

Tracey about choked. “I didn’t- you never- what?”

Erik traced a flower with his finger before tenderly replying, “It was the first instrument I ever
learned. I just kind of- stopped… but this is such good quality… and I miss its sound…”

And sure enough he could play. He played a song that reminded Tracey of palm trees and oceans, sand and peace.

Tracey and Erik held each other for a long time, vowing that things would be different. And they were. From that moment on they took great care in each others’ comfort and always showed affection.

Tracey knew she was wrong when she said the dress was her greatest Christmas present: it was the love she had regained from and for her husband.

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One of the most popular classic Christmas stories that we have read and/or listened to as a family quite often through the years is O.Henry’s Gift of the Magi. In this story, a young, poverty stricken married couple give up each one’s greatest possession in order to get the other person a Christmas gift. It is heart-warming and embraces the true meaning of sacrificial giving.

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(Subscribe to the newsletter to receive our Freebie Fridays–including one of our December 2015 ones, Annotated Christmas Stories booklet.)

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Besides the story below and other online freebie versions of it, this story is found in several lovely compilations of Christmas stories, which is a great way to get started collecting Christmas stories.

While this story is great for older kids, there are versions out there for younger ones as well. One of our favorites is the Adventures in Odyssey radio drama of it (That entire set is an amazing Christmas story set!)

A good radio drama presentation of this story for older kids and adults is found in this little-known about audio.

Additionally, I’ve had my eye on this hardcover picture book version of it.

You don’t need those to enjoy this beautiful story this year. Here is a copy of it for your family read aloud! 🙂

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad. [Paragraph 3]
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”
The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling–something just
a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly, she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”
“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it, she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked
at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”
At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat, and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again–you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice– what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”
“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”
Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs–the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims–just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”
The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who gave gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.

Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
By O. Henry

DISCLOSURE: I am an affiliate for these products that I recommend. If you purchase these items through my links, I will earn a commission, but you will not pay more when buying a product through my link. 🙂

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In addition to “If You’re Missing Baby Jesus,” we have also been blessed for many years with the Christmas story of the Christmas tablecloth or tapestry. This story is a story of hope, restoration, and God’s working in mysterious ways—and never ceases to give pause to all of us as we share in it.

“The Gold and Ivory Tablecloth,” as it is written here is a story of an elderly couple who had been separated and, to each other, presumed dead during the Nazi occupation of Brussels. You will have to read the story to hear God’s working in their lives (hopefully aloud to your family around the dinner table, nativity, or Christmas tree).  This story can be read online here.

There are other versions of this timeless story, including a lovely picture book. (affiliate link)

After you read the story aloud, you can send your kids to the Youtube link of the story being written also:

Other versions are available in Christmas compilations (including a Chicken Soup for the Christmas Soul version).

Of course, being a collector of Christmas stories, I have the picture book version by Patricia Polacco and a couple of other compilation versions. 🙂

A Google search might also lead you to sites telling how the story cannot be true. Stay away from those. The point isn’t whether the story is a true story that could have happened in the timing given. The point of any story is the effect it has on the reader (or listener).

Christmas is a time of hope and restoration—as the greatest restoration ever began with the original Christmas. We are reminded of God’s great restoration in this beautiful story.

Subscribe to the newsletter to get a FREE nine-page download of The Annotated Christmas Book List.

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One of our favorite Christmas traditions is reading aloud from Christmas stories.

We have done this for so many years that we have a handful of them that we try to read whenever some of the grown kids are over during December–and especially on our family Christmas decorating night and Christmas Eve. (Many of our favorites are in Joe Wheeler’s “Christmas Stories From the Heart” books.)

In honor of family read alouds at Christmas–and in order to give you some of these great stories to use with your families, I am going to finish the season out with a short series that includes some of these favorites that are available for free online. Just print them and read them around the dinner table! Your time together will be richer because of family Christmas read alouds!

image via Amazon

This first one is one that we literally do every year–so much so that when I lost my place on the page during our decorating night a few weeks ago, some of the kids kept on “reading” it from memory aloud. (Of course, this just made our time together even more memorable!)

It is available in various compilations. It is also available as a single-story book (which is a nice addition to a Christmas book collection) here.

For printing to read together (or to read from your phone or tablet), “If You’re Missing Baby Jesus” is available here.

DISCLOSURE: I am an affiliate for these products that I recommend. If you purchase these items through my links, I will earn a commission, but you will not pay more when buying a product through my link. 🙂

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