Make a Christmas Book

Posted by Sarah M. White  

A Very Doggie Christmas. Minutes after its creation, it was a best-seller. 

Sometimes it's challenging to play with my toddler because it feels like there's little overlap in our interests. Lol. The interests of a toddler. So, I've started doing activities with her that I enjoy, instead of always asking her what she wants to do. If I want to do something and make it fun, she'll probably have fun doing it too. 

I've been doing a lot of writing lately, and I've started to see stories everywhere. One afternoon when we were super bored and it seemed like 5 o'clock would never come, I decided that we would make a Christmas book. 

I got some blue snowflake paper leftover from our Christmas letter from probably 8 years ago and we started cutting out pictures that she liked from the magazine and also ANY dogs that we saw. My kid is obsessed with dogs. We sorted the pictures and I wrote the text as she glued on the pictures with a glue stick. 

The only supplies you need for this project are: Christmas magazine, paper, stapler, scissors, glue stick, pencil, the entire attention span of your toddler, imagination. I stapled my book first on a guess of how many pages I would need based on what we cut out. 

Here I will share with you our Christmas book called A Very Doggie Christmas. 

It was Christmas time, and doggies everywhere were getting ready to go home for Christmas. The Christmas trees were decorated with presents underneath. 

Stockings were hung by the fireplace. 

Treats were waiting. The fireplace was lit, and cozy blankets were nearby. 

One by one, the doggies began to arrive, dressed for the holidays. 

The doggies were so happy to see each other, but they were tired from the long journey. 

They decided to take a bath. 

They read a bedtime story and climbed into their cozy beds. 

When they woke up, it was Christmas Day! 

A beautiful breakfast was waiting with plenty of dog treats. 

They opened their presents and played together all day. 

The doggies went to bed thankful for being together. The End. 

CG alway laughs at the part "dressed for the holidays" and the corgi with the Christmas lights wrapped around him. Ending with thankfulness was very important to me for this book. 

Tips for success

As any toddler parent knows, only write something that you will want to read a million times. This is why I recommend using a pencil so that you can erase parts that are unnecessary that you discover on the second, third, and fourth reads. I always use the phrase "in the morning," but it's completely useless. Of course they got up "in the morning." Why waste your breath reading that?  

Use the book to celebrate your own traditions. This is the first Christmas that my toddler will be able to remember, so she doesn't know that we always have a special Christmas breakfast. But now she does because that's what the doggies did in the book. I also used her bedtime routine in the book-- something that she knows very well. 

Another plot line for a book like this would be going to pick out a Christmas tree. That's not one of our traditions, but it would be easy to make that book with all of the Christmas trees in the magazines! 

I'd love to hear about your Christmas books if you make one.