Why (and How!) I Store My Holiday Books Separately
When I was growing up, my mom always stored our holiday books with the holiday decorations.
The one I remembered most is The Widow’s Broom getting pulled out each October and it’s still one of my very favorite Halloween books.
There’s just something so special about keeping your holiday books separate from the rest of your books.
Here’s why (and how) I store my holiday books separately:
Why (and How!) I Store My Holiday Books Separately
- It makes them feel special. When you see something every day, it’s easy for it to become commonplace. But when a book gets pulled out only one season of the year, they feel special (just like how a Christmas tree feels special because you don’t have it up all year or pumpkins on the doorstep aren’t an everyday occurrence). I love watching my girls flip through the holiday books and exclaim “I remember this one from last year!” or “I forgot all about this book!” or “I can’t wait to read this one again.” It really gives those holiday books an extra dose of specialness.
- It makes them easy to find when the holiday rolls around. I love that having all my holiday books together means I’m not digging through all my bookshelves trying to round up all the holiday books mixed in with everything else. Having them all stored together means I can grab them all in one go without worrying that I’ve missed some.
- It makes books a central part of our celebrations. It’s important to me that reading is an integral part of our family culture and storing our holiday books and then pulling them out each year emphasizes that part of how we celebrate the holidays in our family is with special holiday books.
- There’s no right way to store them. For years, I stored them in a cardboard box. Then, in our last house, our storage room had a bunch of long narrow shelves (that’s what you get when your house is 70 years old!) and it was perfect for keeping all the holiday books in one place. Now, in our new house, I keep them on the high shelves in my office (I have pretty tall ceilings and the highest bookshelves are not at all convenient for daily access but perfect for books I only pull out once a year). There’s no right answer when it comes to storing holiday books – pick something that works for your home and family and call it good!
Do you store your holiday books separately or are they part of your everyday book collection? I’d love to hear what works for your family!
Yes! We definitely store them separately! I don’t want to read about Santa during the spring, thanks! 😉
Same! There is always so much excitement and memories when we pull out our holiday favorites. And I store them on a high shelf on our bookcase, too! 🙂
When the kids were small we would use a special basket or a cardboard box wrapped with wrapping paper for all the Christmas books. We kept it on the floor near the tree and let them grab them whenever they wanted. They loved flipping through all the books and it kept them special for the holiday!
Yep, absolutely not a fan of reading about Christmas in March. It is one of the highlights of decorating the house to pull out the decorations AND the books.
I store our holiday books with our holiday decorations. My mom loves to gift the grandkids holiday books so our collection is getting quite large. We have Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter, and Halloween/Thanksgiving books thanks to her. I love the tradition!
We store our holiday books with that particular holiday’s decorations. It makes them feel so special! Specifically for Christmas, I wrap each book individually and we open a book per day. It takes a little bit of the “gimmies” away when they want to open Christmas presents before it’s time and they’ve begun remembering the books so they’re trying to find a specific book while it’s wrapped.
Unfortunately I don’t have any extra shelf space for holiday books. Instead, I keep them in plastic bins with lids, each labeled by holiday, and stack the bins in the basement. The bin for the next upcoming holiday is always on top so it’s easily accessible and when put away afterwards a bin always go to the bottom of the stack.
That’s a great solution! I kept mine in boxes until our last two houses!
Thanks for the helpful post! Do you also store/take out holiday chapter books too, or just the picture books?
I do the chapter books too!
We pack away our books so that we bring them out with the holiday/season. We now have an entire bin dedicated to just Christmas/Winter books and movies. Our kids are always excited to open the bins on different holidays and get reacquainted with old favorites.
Nope they’re stored with the rest of the books but grouped together in a holiday section. We don’t read them until the specified holiday but instead of having to track down the decorations for that holiday we just keep them where we can get them. Plus we don’t decorate for every little holiday so it wouldn’t make sense to put them with decorations. It really doesn’t make it any less special because it sits in the bookshelf with the other books.
I store my holiday books separately. It is such a joy to bring them out each season.
When we first started our family we didn’t have a lot of money, so holiday books became part of our decorations. Every flat surface had at least one book on it with holly sprigs tied to a book mark hanging over the side. Now we are empty nesters and I still buy holiday books and put them out. I also give each grandchild a Christmas book, and other holiday books on the appropriate holiday (my girls prefer that to candy even though their shelves are starting to overflow also 🙂
Same here. All the holiday books are stored with the holiday decorations. I have collected so many books over the years. Allways ready to find a new one.
At Christmas, rather than an advent calendar I wrap the kids’ books and they open one a day was we count down to Christmas!
Of course they are stored separately. It makes them special. It is pulling out old friends with memories of past seasons.
I have stored mine in sturdy tote bags that are of the same season. It makes them easy to pull out and take elsewhere.
Except for the Christmas books, which take a permanent place in a main bookcase. I have enough of them to take up three shelves in that bookcase.
I was an elementary library media specialist during my working years. Accumulating such holiday books was an occupational hazard. I owned my favorites so I could count on having them available (not lost or checked out…) when I needed them for a lesson
As I teacher, I’ve never done this in the classroom but love the idea to incorporate it too!!! Thanks for the fun read!
I store them with our decorations for that holiday/season so when I get the decor out, I get the books out too.