Christmas books with coordinating crafts ~ fun idea to use with kids or grandkids

From Jolly Old Santa Claus, a favorite from my childhood

Here is a different sort of Christmas activity ... a countdown, if you will.  It would be great fun with kids of any age and also with grandchildren, of course.  Here's the link: Christmas books with coordinating crafts.

I was at a loss for what to share today .... I had some ideas, but they all were going to take more time than I have today.  So I went through one of the folders in my email inbox.  I get lots of blogs via email because it's much easier to keep up with them that way.  If the content interests me, I can go to the blog and read more.  If it doesn't, I delete it with no time wasted.  Often, these days, I will go to the blog and pin the idea.  But back before Pinterest, I put these emails into folders.  When I needed an idea for today I went to my Christmas Crafting folder.  This one looked very interesting so I thought I would share it with all of you.

Basically, the idea is to read a Christmas book every day before Christmas and then do a craft that fits with it.  The Animals' Christmas Eve, for instance, featured a manger ornament.  The Night Before Christmas was sugarplum ornaments.  And so on.  This would be so much fun for the kids!

I know some families do read a Christmas book a day until Christmas, but this idea of linking a craft to it was new to me.

I had a couple of fun variations occur to me.  One was that instead of doing only crafts, one could change it up a bit by making recipes to coordinate with some of the books.  For example, sugar plum candies to go along with The Night Before Christmas, or donkey-shaped cookies for a book about the first Christmas.

My other thought would require some planning, but I thought of giving this to a family as a gift -- books, along with the craft ideas and some or all of the needed materials.  You could give the gift in November and the family would have the fun of doing this activity together.

Another idea might be to give a child one book and a craft "kit" (made up by you) to go with it, and do this every year for the different kids in a family.  An enjoyable way to pass the days before Christmas.

Have fun with this idea!  I'm thinking I just might do this for my faraway grandkids -- if not this year, then some year soon!