This Christmas I am immersing myself in Christmas audiobooks that I’ve never heard before. In previous years, I’ve listened to The Christmas Chronicles and a few other stories like “The Mansion” by Henry Van Dyke.

I might listen to The Christmas Chronicles again, on Christmas Eve, because it’s so magical, but I’m wanting to listen to all new stuff first.

OK, so here are my choices. The one at the very top is nonfiction, written by a pastor. Even though I don’t agree with everything in it, from a theological standpoint, I enjoy hearing from him about why the story of Christ and Christmas are so important. It helps give me fresh eyes and a new heart.

The first bunch of these audiobooks that you see pictured, in this blog post, all with the headphones icon in the lower right corner, are from scribd.com. You can sign up for scribd here, and get a free 2 month trial. What I love about scribd is that even though you pay a monthly subscription fee, after the free trial is over, you can get more than one book a month, unlike with Audible. You get access to all the audiobooks for a flat fee, not just one a month, as with Audible. I have Audible too though, it often has stuff scribd doesn’t have. Between the two, I can  usually find any audiobook I want. I have a lot of book needs what with my scholar children and their book lists for school, my 10 year old in his Mastering Knighthood class, the class I mentor, and my two book clubs. So I love having scribd and audible! I love scribd better. Another great thing about scribd: you can easily earn free months by sharing with your friends.

We listened to the above book on a car trip with my children. It’s a delightfully warm story about a brother/sister pair and the brother’s desire to give a gift to a cow so she won’t be lonely. It’s from the author of Sarah Plain and Tall.

A Shiloh Christmas caused my husband to laugh out loud a few times as we listened to it as a whole family on a car trip last weekend. It’s cute and funny, about a boy living in the country, with his family and dog, and neighbors rallying around after a house fire.

As a die-hard fan of Anne with an “e”, I, of course love this one! The first story is the chapter about Matthew giving Anne the dress with puffed sleeves. The other stories are all from her other books. I love the one about the travelers on the train, with the old lady sharing goodies from her basket on Christmas Eve.

This one is so sweet! I’m almost done. A little bit of it is cheesy, but I love that it’s all about a family and some very weighty problems. I absolutely love the idyllic description of the extended family Thanksgiving celebration. Kirby Heyborne helps narrate it. It’s fun to think of his earnest expressions from the movies I’ve seen him in as I hear his voice.

This one so far is good. It’s third in a trilogy. The first story, The Christmas Shoes, was made into a movie, below, starring Kimberly Williams. I watched that movie years ago and loved it. The other two books are in scribd too. Maybe they have been made into movies as well? I don’t know. Yes, they are high on the cheese factor.

 

I’m going to play this for the kids when we are done with Shiloh. Here’s the description from scribd.com:

The complete series of Father Christmas letters written by JRR Tolkien for his own children between 1920 and 1943.Can you imagine writing to Father Christmas and actually getting a reply? Every year, the children of J.R.R. Tolkien would write to Father Christmas, and the letters they received told wonderful stories of his adventures at the North Pole. These humorous tales are brought to life by Derek Jacobi as Father Christmas, John Moffatt as Polar Bear, and Christian Rodska as Ilbereth the Elf, complete with specially composed music.

 

The above one was sweet and very short. We listened to it in the car.

The above one is to help me start out the New Year with perhaps a revised money system for my children. Yeah, it sounds like homework. Yeah, I think I’ll wait until January to listen. I’d rather listen to fun Christmas-y stuff now. I do have another responsible, “homework-type” book below. It’s involved in a birthday gift, for my hubby, as you will soon find out.

Listening to Dave’s book above is a repeat for me. The first time was the spring of 2012. It’s what started the seed for our debt-free journey, which we completed last June, hooray! Now I’m listening to it as a gift for my husband. He’s asking me and the four oldest children (the adults in the family) to read/listen to it and 20 Dave Ramsey podcast episodes as his gift for his birthday in March, to brainwash us, LOL. We’re already all on the same page, none of the adult children have any debts, thank goodness, knock on wood, and we want to keep it that way, so this will go a long ways to helping with that. (It won’t be available in scribd until 12/16/19). I’ll get started on it with a paragraph or two and then dig in next month.

 

 

The text for this is online for free. So far I haven’t found a readily available free audio version without signing up for something.  My friend Audrey reviews it below. It is in Audible so I might get it there.

 

Here’s another one in Audible, not scribd:

 

I attempted to read it aloud last year and we only got to Chapter 3. This time around we will finish, even if we do so in February! It’s supposed to be really good.

OK, here are some from YouTube that look promising. We might do these in January…I don’t know if we’ll get to them what with all the others I’ve already listed.

 

 

The Christmas Carol on audio, fully dramatized, is here. This version is rather scary. I find even the Muppet Christmas Carol slightly scary, LOL, but I’m going to give the Mormon Channel version another go this season, even though I’ve never been able to get through it before.

I’d love to hear any others you love, so please feel free to comment below with your suggestions.