Christmas wouldn’t be complete without good Christmas stories — here are 10 of our favorite read-aloud Christmas books:
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The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
You should be able to find all or most of these at your local library!
What are some of your family’s favorite read-aloud Christmas books? I’d love to find new ones to add to our list of favorites!
top image via Bigstock
I’m speaking at the Midwest Homeschool Conference on Saturday about Becoming a Work-At-Home Mom Without Losing Your Sanity. In the handout, I made a list of seven of my favorite business books and I thought some of you who couldn’t make it to the conference might enjoy seeing this list, too.
Now, mind you, three of these don’t even have much to do with business. Instead, they are about time management. However, I’ve found that it’s near impossible to successfully work from home if you’re not a good manager of your time. So I think books on time management are vitally important to read if you work from home or are considering working from home.
Here’s my list of seven must-read books:
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1. Quitter by Jon Acuff In his witty style, Jon shares a wealth of advice for getting from where you are to where you want to go. |
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2. The Other 8 Hours by Robert Paglierini This book has page after page of helpful advice and suggestions for how to earn income outside of your day job. If you feel like you don’t have time to start something on the side because your plate is already quite full, this book will especially be helpful. |
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3. EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey This book is packed with tried-and-tried information, practical application, and fantastic inspiration. As a small business owner with a few employees and sub-contractors, I’ve gleaned so much from this book. |
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4. Eat That Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating by Brian Tracy This book has many practical ideas for prioritizing your time and life so that you make the most of your days. |
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5. How to Have a 48-Hour Day by Don Aslett This book is filled with lots of practical advice and inspiration for making the most of each day. |
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6. 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam Laura helps you rethink your “I don’t have enough time” excuses and shows you how you just may have quite a bit more time than you realized! |
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7. Tell Your Time (ebook) by Amy Lynn Andrews This ebook offers step-by-step help for setting up a time budget — a concept that has revolutionized my time management! |
Reading is a wonderful way to stimulate your children’s minds, teach them great lessons, open up new worlds, and give them a life-long interest in learning.
If your children are young, reading aloud also provides a great opportunity to spend quality time together — plus, if you get most of your books free, reading is an incredibly frugal pastime!
We love books at our house. We don’t have a lot of children’s toys, but oh do we enjoy books!
Our children never tire of being read to. And since I’m often asked for children’s book recommendations, I’ve compiled 15 of my all-time favorite read-alouds below. These are books that we’ve read over and over and over again. Many of them might already be on your own shelves, but I hope you’ll discover a few new ones, too.
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This is one of family’s most-read books. In fact, I’m pretty sure every single one of us have this entire book memorized by heart. We can also can tell you every little detail on every square inch of every page. But that’s perfectly okay, because it’s such a great classic book. |
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This book was sent to our family by a blog reader and it has become one of the most-requested read-alouds by our girls. It’s a fun — and sometimes a bit over-the-top — book about life in a bustling household. |
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If I had to pick a favorite book from all the children’s books we own, I’m pretty sure this book would be it. It’s a beautiful story of God’s love for us — even when we were yet sinners. It touches me every time I read it to the girls and opens up lots of opportunities for me to explain truths about God. |
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This is a true and fascinating story from 1783. A 3-year-old girl gets lost in the woods and is saved by a bear — yes, I said a bear. The girls are always in awe and ask dozens of questions when we read this one. |
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The children never tire of this story and it always produces a plethora of questions on bull-fighting, bees, and everything in-between. |
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Kathrynne loves this story and so do I. It’s a beautiful tale of a girl who shows great responsibility and determination to stick to her commitments — in spite of great difficulty. |
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Despite how many times we’ve read this book, it never ceases to capture the girls’ complete attention. They find it fascinating. Plus, it offers lots of opportunities for us to discuss entrepreneurialism and how “way back when” people really had to get creative when it came to earning a living. |
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With absolutely gorgeous and detailed artwork, this book contains the rich phrases of the Psalm 103. If your children are anything like mine, they will want to spend a great deal of time just studying the pictures. |
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This story always captures the girl’s attention and keeps it the entire time. While it’s not a realistic story, it’s still a fun book to read — and the pictures are enjoyable, too. It’s also a great way to teach your children about the fact that some people can pretend to like you or have your best interests in mind, when really, they are out to hurt you. |
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This book is such a fun read! The pictures are colorful, the story line is engaging and it also opens up opportunities to introduce your children to how different people in different countries live. |
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Hand’s down, Lois Lenski is one of our very favorite children’s authors — it’s simply impossible for me to narrow down our favorites to just one or two of her books. I grew up on her books and have been delighted to share them with my children, as well. |
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We’ve searched high and low for quality children’s Bible story books — ones that are accurate, doctrinally sound, and not filled with nonsense and fluff are hard to find. I apprehensively ordered The Jesus Storybook Bible based upon the strong recommendations of friends I trust. It has since become our most treasured read-aloud. The girls would pick this over any other book any day. |
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No book list is complete without mentioning the Curious George books. I first introduced the girls to them when I was pregnant with Silas and very sick with morning-noon-and-night sickness. The girls would ask me to re-read the Curious George books again and again. And to this day, it’s not changed! Anytime I ask them to go pick out books to read, you can be sure there will be at least one Curious George title in the mix. |
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We’ve already read through The Complete Little House Nine-Book Set, but we also love the My First Little House books, as well. We’ve had so many great discussions on how blessed we are to live with so many modern conveniences and how important it is to have a strong work ethic — all thanks to the Little House books. |
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I highly recommend the Little Jewel books, especially for younger children. They are fun to read and full of great character lessons that even very small children can understand and apply. |
I had trouble narrowing our list of favorite books down to 15, so here are a few more we really enjoy:
One resource I’ve used extensively to find quality books to read-aloud to my children is the Hand That Rocks the Cradle: 400 Classic Books for Children. It has excellent reviews and book summaries, as well as dividing up all the books by three different reading levels.
If you don’t have a Facebook account and you’ve been feeling left out on all the great Facebook freebies and coupons which have been coming down the pipe, I’d encourage you to read For the Momma’s article on how to set up a Facebook account that you can use to sign up for the Facebook freebies and coupons, without compromising your privacy.
Here are some great reads from this week:
The Pros and Cons of a CSA — Will a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) allow you to buy local produce for less? Read more at Frugal Green Family.
How to Make Your Cashier Love You — Great ideas and suggestions from Publix Penny Pincher.
Do Mother’s Day Differently — Instead of spending $50 on a flower bouquet which quickly wilts, what about changing a life?
