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Picture Book Advent Calendar LIFTOFF!
Dec. 1st, 2025 12:19 pmAt long last December has arrived, and with it the first day of my picture book advent calendar! Before work I had a cup of tea and a cranberry sauce-almond muffin and Tasha Tudor's Corgiville Christmas, which I realized that I've actually read before, probably around when it came out in 2002, because at the time I was quite disappointed by the sketchy style: the pictures look like rough drafts, not as polished and detailed as in Tudor's other books, like my beloved Corgiville Fair.
I do still find the sketchiness a trifle disappointing, to be honest, but I did enjoy the bucolic image of the Corgiville Christmas: skating parties on the frozen pond, making cornucopias to hang on the tree, painting a new Advent calendar for the year...
The corgis start Advent properly on December 6th, so I have been appropriately chastened for my break with tradition in starting on the first. (But will cheerfully enjoy books 2 through 5 regardless.)
As the Advent books came in at the library, I wrapped them in leftover brown paper so each day's book could be a surprise. Yesterday after I decorated the Christmas tree, it occurred to me that it would look so much more festive with the Advent books heaped underneath - if only the books were wrapped in something a bit more jolly than brown paper. For a brief mad moment I considered re-wrapping them all in proper wrapping paper, but sanity prevailed and I only wrapped my cloth Christmas napkins around the top ten or so, which are after all the ones that show.
The tree DOES look extremely merry with a heap of books wrapped under it, so I'm thinking I may need to make the picture book Advent calendar an annual tradition. Perhaps going forward I will include only a smattering of Christmas books? Mostly they could any book by picture book illustrators I like. A grand way to catch up on all the Barbara Cooney and Patricia Polacco books I've missed.
I do still find the sketchiness a trifle disappointing, to be honest, but I did enjoy the bucolic image of the Corgiville Christmas: skating parties on the frozen pond, making cornucopias to hang on the tree, painting a new Advent calendar for the year...
The corgis start Advent properly on December 6th, so I have been appropriately chastened for my break with tradition in starting on the first. (But will cheerfully enjoy books 2 through 5 regardless.)
As the Advent books came in at the library, I wrapped them in leftover brown paper so each day's book could be a surprise. Yesterday after I decorated the Christmas tree, it occurred to me that it would look so much more festive with the Advent books heaped underneath - if only the books were wrapped in something a bit more jolly than brown paper. For a brief mad moment I considered re-wrapping them all in proper wrapping paper, but sanity prevailed and I only wrapped my cloth Christmas napkins around the top ten or so, which are after all the ones that show.
The tree DOES look extremely merry with a heap of books wrapped under it, so I'm thinking I may need to make the picture book Advent calendar an annual tradition. Perhaps going forward I will include only a smattering of Christmas books? Mostly they could any book by picture book illustrators I like. A grand way to catch up on all the Barbara Cooney and Patricia Polacco books I've missed.
