ChirpPal
A guide for families

Christmas Eve books: where the tradition comes from and how to start yours

One book on Christmas Eve, read before bed. It’s a small tradition that needs very little, and over the years it leaves you with a shelf of books marked by the year they arrived.

Sources are linked in the text. Last checked November 2026.

Christmas Eve: a grandmother and a six-year-old boy in round glasses on the rug by the tree and the fire, looking at an illustrated picture book, with a small dog asleep beside them

Iceland’s Christmas book flood

The best-documented version comes from Iceland, where it has a name: Jólabókaflóð, the Christmas book flood. Strictly speaking, the word describes publishing rather than reading. As the Icelandic writer Hildur Knútsdóttir explained in 2009, most of the country’s books come out in the two or three months before Christmas. Smithsonian magazine reported in 2022 that the Christmas season brings in 40 percent of the year’s book sales there.

The history usually starts with the Second World War. Imported gifts were hard to get and paper was easier to come by, so books became the present to give. For Christmas 1944, the Icelandic Publishers Association produced the first Bókatíðindi, a catalog of that year’s books sent free to households, and a new one has appeared every year since. Iceland’s tourism board describes the custom at the end of all this: exchanging books on Christmas Eve, then spending the rest of the evening reading them.

What we can’t say for sure

Accounts differ on the details. Visit Iceland says paper was one of the few goods not rationed, while Knútsdóttir describes paper imports as less restricted. The 1944 catalog is well attested, but we didn’t find a firm date for when reading on Christmas Eve itself became the custom.

We also couldn’t find a reliable history of how the idea reached English-speaking families, or whether they got it from Iceland at all, so we won’t claim a straight line from Reykjavik to your living room.

Christmas reading has other roots too. “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known as “The Night Before Christmas,” first appeared anonymously in the Troy Sentinel in New York on December 23, 1823. It’s usually credited to Clement Clarke Moore, though the case for Henry Livingston Jr. is still argued. Some Christian families read the Nativity story from the Gospel of Luke. You don’t need this history to begin.

How to start your own

  • Keep one thing the same. The same chair, the same time, the same mugs.
  • Decide on one book or one each. A family book is cheaper and easier with small children. One each is closer to the Icelandic custom and suits older readers.
  • Get it by early December. Buy or borrow the book before you’re searching for one on the 23rd.
  • Write inside the cover. The child’s name, the year and one line about what this year was like.
  • Let old books come back. Last year’s favorite counts. So does the copy you had as a child.
  • If you’re far away, read it over a video call or record it ahead of time. Our guide for long distance grandparents has more on that.
  • Don’t guard it too strictly. If everyone is asleep by eight, read it on Christmas morning.

What makes a good Christmas Eve book

  • It fits one sitting. Children are up late and full of sugar, so choose something you can finish.
  • It ends quietly. The last page should slow everyone down.
  • It sounds good out loud. Read a page aloud before you buy it, in the library or the shop.
  • It suits this child this year. Before you choose a Santa story for someone else’s child, ask what the family says about Santa.
  • It doesn’t have to be about Christmas. An older child may be happier with a new novel by a favorite author.

Classic Christmas Eve books

  • The Polar ExpressChris Van Allsburg, 1985On Christmas Eve, a boy boards a train bound for the North Pole. It won the 1986 Caldecott Medal, and its ending, about a bell, suits the last minutes before sleep.
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas!Dr. Seuss, 1957Rhyming, funny and good for voices.
  • The Tailor of GloucesterBeatrix Potter, 1903Mice help a sick tailor finish a wedding coat in time for Christmas Day. The language is old, so it suits patient listeners.
  • A Visit from St. NicholasUsually credited to Clement Clarke Moore, 1823Short enough for any bedtime, and free to read at the Academy of American Poets.
  • Mr. Willowby’s Christmas TreeRobert Barry, 1963A tree too tall for the parlor has its top cut off and passed along to smaller and smaller households, ending with mice. It’s told in rhyme.
  • Harvey Slumfenburger’s Christmas PresentJohn Burningham, 1993Father Christmas finds one present left in his sack and sets off to deliver it to a boy on a faraway mountain.
  • The Jolly Christmas PostmanJanet and Allan Ahlberg, 1991A postman delivers Christmas cards to fairy-tale characters, and each card comes out of its envelope. It’s best on a lap rather than over a screen.
  • The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan ToomeySusan Wojciechowski, illustrated by P.J. Lynch, 1995A widow and her seven-year-old son ask a gruff woodcarver to carve the figures for a Christmas crèche. It suits families who want a religious story.

What about a personalized Christmas Eve book?

The cheapest way to personalize any book is with a pen. A classic with a handwritten line and a year inside is hard to beat. Books made with a child’s name and details are a different pleasure: less of a literary classic, more the fun of finding yourself in the story.

Another guide: books for kids who ask why.