RAR #36: Christmas and Advent Read-Alouds with Elizabeth Foss
It’s the hap-happiest read-aloud time of the year! I don’t know anyone who lives this out better than my good friend, Elizabeth Foss, so I invited her onto the show to chat up Christmas and Advent read-alouds.
We’re so excited about this episode of the podcast, we’re publishing a whole week early.
In this episode; you’ll hear how to:
- find the best Christmas and Advent books
- celebrate the season without getting overwhelmed
- enjoy December with your family
Click the play button below:
Christmas and Advent Read-Alouds (and other books from this episode):
(All links are affiliate links.)
Links from this episode:
- Elizabeth’s post It’s the Most Read-Aloud Time of the Year
- St. Nicholas cookie cutters
- Elizabeth’s Storybook Year post
- Jan Brett’s website
- Advent & Christmas with Tomie DePaola
- Elizabeth’s post Christmas Read Aloud Around the World
- That beautiful quote from Elizabeth’s site: “Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child.”
Is there a place I would find a list of the saints dates?
Here’s a list, Hayley: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/12.cfm
Two we love are ‘The Last Straw’ by Frederick Thur (one of the wise men’s camels is humbled by carrying all the gifts for the Christ Child; sweet and funny) and ‘A Small Miracle’ by Peter Collington (a wordless book in which the nativity figures come to life and to the aid of a woman who is alone and distressed; tearjerker).
I love Elizabeth’s idea to make gingerbread stories and gingerbread houses a one-day event! The kids will LOVE it. I’m not sure if it is ok to post a YouTube video link, but just to sprinkle more spice on a gingerbread day, do a quick search for “Disney’s Grand Floridian Spa & Resort Gingerbread House and Christmas Tree” to show the kids a jaw-dropping gingerbread house.
Oh I loved listening to this podcast so much. We too have loved and enjoyed picture books well into elementary years. As an adult I still appreciate a beautifully illustrated picture book (Brambly Hedge, Shirley Hughes, and many others spring to mind). It was lovely to hear that these books are still unashamedly enjoyed in families by children of all ages.
Did you list the book that you mentioned that starts out really sad. A chapter book by the same author of one of the picture books that Elizabeth mentions?
Sarah, THANK YOU for making the transcript available for this episode for free this time! That will be such a blessing! I know you can’t do it all the time, so I appreciate you making it available here. <3
I was just wondering which books are catholic focused and the ones that aren’t. Thanks so much! Always love your podcasts!
Another entry from the team that produced Paper Toss, ninjas in this game
must fight their way to the top, while avoiding bombs,
squirrels, shuriken, birds, and other ninjas. Monday night marked the premiere of Discovery’s first foray into scripted series in the form of Klondike,
starring Game of Thrones alum Richard Madden, Abbie Cornish, Tim Roth, and Sam Shepard.
Todd’s habit of putting things on the backburner seems to cause major delays and problems for this gold mining crew.
Thank you for this episode! It makes me miss all of our Christmas and Advent books which are in storage while we live overseas, but we’ll be back in the States next year and now have so many new and amazing ideas to implement! Thank you, thank you thank you!
Love Christmas picture books!
Being an Australian early childhood teacher I thought I’d share some of my favorite Australian Christmas picture books;
The Nativity by Julie Vivas – words from King James Bible as well, but gorgeous watercolour illustrations.
Wombat Devine by Mem Fox about Australian animals putting on a Nativity play – wombat really want to be in the play but they can’t find the right part for him.
2 possibly new ones for you to check out :)
Love picture books at Christmas. Growing up we got a new Christmas book each year for the collection and that’s a tradition I have continued – picking out the new book is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas.
Thank you for airing this podcast–it was delightful! I love the idea of using picture books during Advent/Nativity. We’re going to do a modified version of this today, and I think my children will love it. :)
I really enjoyed this podcast. I’d forgotten all about Tomie de Paola. We have a few traditions that we continue regardless of where we are living. One is listening to the Festival of nine lessons and carols, the other is reading “Christmas” illustrated by Jan Pienskowski using the text from the King James Bible.
Sorry for the rambling… I do have a question at the end…
I have followed both you and Elizabeth for quite some time and enjoy your post, podcasts, books… and have learned a lot from what you both have shared. This episode was just what I needed. We moved almost exactly a year ago and last advent was bittersweet and beautiful in its own way… homeschooling advent through books and trying to regroup after and intense 3 weeks of purging, packing and moving. This year (we moved again in the summer from a rental to our new home) I found myself navigating new challenges that come from traveling on Thanksgiving so all my usual decorating/organizing the days after Thanksgiving didn’t happen. Then we came home and my heart wanted to scrap everything and get my home in Christmas order BUT I kept running into my type A list self who said you have middle schoolers now and you need to keep on task and plugging away. I love the idea of making advent and Christmas books your school and learning flowing from them… and I’m good with that through elementary school… BUT what about middle school (and then beyond). Maybe Elizabeth can speak to this since she has graduated several. What does schooling and advent look like with your kids as they get older (my oldest is in 7th)? Thanks so much and blessing for a beautiful advent and Christmas season.
Also I second the recommendation of Elizabeth’s advent ebook… I am really enjoying that this advent.
By the way, I LOVED the podcast too!!!!
I have to recommend a couple of books that I’ve read with my twin boys of 4 years and they were great! One is A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree by Colleen Monroe. Great story of how we should always let people around us how important they are to us and know how much they mean to us. The other I read with them has been The Christmas Wish by Lori Evert. I liked this one because it has a lot of teachings at once. While the emphasis on kindness (the little girl helping an older neighbor), it teaches the importance of organization, perseverance, etc. I read it with my boys and they both liked it (even though their attention spam is still kind of not there yet) but since the story is about a little girl, a little girl will probably enjoy it even more!
LOVED this podcast! Thank you ladies! Just a little tip… I was searching for a couple of the titles that were new to me- one of them being The Donkey’s Dream, and couldn’t find any affordable copies since it seems to be out of print. But a little local (to me) bookstore has it available for special order for $18 and they’ll ship right to your house for $5. Still on the expensive for a picture book but some of the used websites I was looking at were listing it for $80! Here’s the link where I found it for special order:
http://www.oldfirehousebooks.com/book/9780399212338
I’m not affiliated with the bookstore or anything- I was just happy to find it and thought others might be interested as well. 😊
Ahhh- they just cancelled my order because they can’t actually get it in, so scratch that. 🙁
I loved this interview! Elizabeth gives such wonderful book recommendations – at least some of these books are bound to be on our shelves soon! They will be a big help in preparing my children for the beautiful feast of Christmas.
Sarah, perhaps you could get Elizabeth back on for Lent and Easter? I’m sure she’s built up a great collection of books for that season, too.
I haven’t had a chance to listen yet. I got interrupted a little of the ways in, but my 8 year old daughter continued listening while she folded the laundry. She loves your podcast, Sarah. Isn’t that so interesting, that it appeals to her? I have done one thing right: my daughter loves, loves, loves books. She came downstairs afterwards, ecstatic, saying we had to get the Nutcracker coffee book. Thank goodness you keep a book list here because of course I had no idea what she was talking about. I wish our library had a copy of The Legend of the Candy Cane, but they don’t so I’ve added it to my Amazon wishlist for next year.
Thank you for offering this only for members FREE this time. Getting a taste of what members get will give me the opportunity to see if I should become a member. Just trying to keep information and resources at bay… Thank you
Great discussion, Sarah and Elizabeth! Thanks for getting it out to us so quickly.
One Tomie dePaola book I don’t think you mentioned but that I heartily recommend is “The Clown of God.” It’s a good choice for the Christmas season (the story ends in a cathedral on Christmas Eve), and is beautiful, both its story and its art. It’s a very moving tale about offering our best, no matter what others think of it, to Christ.
The book is a great read-aloud choice. I’ve also memorized the text and performed it as a dramatic storytelling.
Thanks again for a very enjoyable episode.
I LOVE that one! It’s included in the Advent to Christmas to Epiphany unit study I’ve posted here. Lots and lots and lots of books and learning ideas and links even if you’re not homeschooling. http://www.elizabethfoss.com/journal/advent-and-christmas-with-tomie-depaola
Thank you!
(With end of the year expenses – and a new schooling year for us just looming around the corner – ‘blessing priced’ things are always welcome :) )
Love!! There are just no other words.
So it took me all day to listen to this but I’m so so glad I did! After years of reading Elizabeth’s blog, I realized today that I really and truly am an auditory learner. I absolutely loved listening to her talk about her traditions and the Advent season even though I’ve read through it dozens of times. She was so simple and so genuine and so very gentle (just what moms-during-Advent need!!). Thank you for the podcast, Sarah!
Thanks for the great episode! I requested several titles from the library. You mentioned a new chapter book at the beginning of the podcast but I don’t see it on the list (and I don’t have time to listen to it, again). You said everyone loved it. Is it on the list and I missed it?
Thank you!
I think it’s called Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan.
That’s the one!
Oh what a fun list! I see some titles I’m not familiar with and am looking forward to checking out.
Right now we’re loving our read-aloud of the brand new Advent book from Natasha Metzler (one of my favorite authors), entitled Christmas! the whole story of the God who loves.
We’re loving looking for the little bug in Natasha’s book each day too, Gretchen!
Loved the podcast! So many books and great ideas :) Heads up, the last three links to Elizabeth’s blog don’t work.