Alas, I find my life so busy that I haven’t blogged each day to do a proper countdown to Christmas, of one thing each day. Oh well. Today I’ll cover three days in one fell swoop, again.

Let’s talk about three great Christmas reads, one for Sunday Dec. 19, one for yesterday Dec. 20, and one for today, Dec. 21.

I saw the above book at my public library and decided to take a chance on it. So far I like it. I’m always looking for new Christmas stories. It’s a collection of short stories from some well-known authors and some not well-known, of LDS fiction. Here’s what amazon.com says about it, “A beloved season of festivity and tradition, Christmas heralds the creation of treasured family memories and inspires our hearts to turn to the tender recollections of the past. In Remembering the Joy of Christmas, more than a dozen of the finest authors in LDS fiction have joined together to craft a heartwarming compilation of their own personal accounts of Christmases gone by. From the magic of one family’s inspiring Twelve Days of Christmas to a miraculous holiday spent in a hospital waiting room, each poignant story demonstrates a simple truth: it is not the lights or decorations that are central to a joyous holiday season. The true meaning of Christmas comes in focusing on the spirit of the season.”

I got the above book because Sarah Mackenzie of readaloudrevival.com recommended it. The author, the one and only Tomie dePaola, shares memories of his Christmases, from the time when he was three, in 1937. He grew up in Connecticut with an Italian father, an Irish mother, and three siblings. Sarah is a Tomie dePaola fanatic, I’m just mildly interested in him. I still have a Tomie book that I got in first grade (from the Scholastic Book Club, remember that?) about clouds. So his name as an author does bring back fond memories of my childhood. You don’t have to be a fan to enjoy this book. If you love anything to do with nostalgia, American history and culture of the mid-1900s, or family life and Christmas, you will enjoy this book. It’s just fun to peek through a window into history and see the wonders and delights of being a child at Christmas, with his glorious descriptions of his own memorable holidays. I love the decorations his mother used, how his family was the first to have a TV in their town, and the year he got a bountiful supply of art materials from Santa Claus when he was 8 or 9. You just feel the generosity of the Christmas spirit of family and friends oozing from these pages. More for adults than children, but ages 10 and up will probably like it too.

I’m reading aloud this one above while the kiddos do dishes every day. It’s a mashup of A Christmas Carol with The Nativity Story. Interesting! We’re not very far into it but so far it makes me wonder, how is this going to pan out? Will Tiny Tim be healed by Baby Jesus? Will Ebeneezer be visited by the herald angels as the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future? While reading it tonight, one of the boys had to leave the room so I stopped reading it. I was surprised that my daughter, who hadn’t noticed her brother leave, asked me to keep reading. She’s such a tough audience to impress with stories, so that request to keep reading is high praise for this book.