Mom's Notes: Just as soon as Halloween was over, the kids (especially the teenagers!) were more than ready for full Christmas mode. I decided to indulge them by putting up some decorations in the basement where we read, decking the couch pillows in new festive pillowcases, and turning read aloud time over to the season completely. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. We might as enjoy it as long as we can! We read a few old favorites and a few stories new to us. The younger three and I celebrated the stories by creating Christmas cards based on the families in the books!
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - we reread this because we were just about to see the new movie. It is beautiful and truly does the book justice! The message that Jesus was born for all of us is one of the most important in any story every written.
The Family Under the Bridge - A Christmas with the hobos and gypsies in France is always a fresh perspective for us. I teared up again at the end when Armand is picturing the dumpy apartment with its beautiful potential as a home filled with love.
101 Dalmatians - This was charming! Listening to a brilliant British actor read it made it that much more enjoyable. We could relate to the doggy behavior with Clay exhibiting some of it even as we listened. I was impressed with the beautiful scene in the church when the puppies love the nativity scene even more than their beloved television. That chapter was a treasure.
The Christmas Doll - This was a sweet book, albeit predictable! Our hearts went out to the little orphan girls. The juxtaposition of their harsh lives on the dirty London streets and the lavish doll shop was poignant.
The Birds' Christmas Carol - This is really more of a short story, and we read it in an hour on our last school day of the year. I had heard about it over the years, and I'm glad it's now in our basket of Christmas books forever. It's carefully and artfully written. We laughed at the Ruggles in "manners training" with their determined mother! And I definitely cried with the sweet passing of young, Christ-like Carol.
