Christmas Picture Book Faves Linky Party and Freebie too!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! It's time for the Christmas Picture Book Linky Party too! I'm so excited to share some of my favorites and find some new favorites when other people link-up. Here's how to participate: write a post about some of your favorite Christmas Picture Books, add any activities you want to share that go with those books, add the button you'll find at the end of this post and link up below. Merry Christmas!

These are some of my favorite Christmas books:

I love Eric Carle books!
Here's the summary from Amazon.com: It's December 24th, and the old farmer settles down for a winter's nap, wondering how Christmas can come when there is no snow! It is in his dream that he imagines a snowstorm coming and covering him and his animals—named One, Two, Three, Four and Five—in a snowy blanket.
But when the farmer awakens, he finds that it has really snowed outside, and now he remembers something! Putting on his red suit, he goes outside, puts some gifts under the tree for his animals, and presses a button near a Christmas tree, creating a most surprising musical treat for children everywhere.
Here's the link to Eric Carle's website: http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

David Shannon's (author of the No, David! books) illustrations have always been among my favorites.  This is a story about two men who get into a competition decorating their homes. When one of the men gets so carried away that he starts to ignore his family and the lights in the neighborhood all go out because he's using so much electricity, the neighbors destroy his display. However, the neighbors regret what they've done, and the father remembers that his family are what are really important.
Here's a freebie to go with it:

 No one in my class had ever heard of Harold and the Purple Crayon yesterday when I read this book. I remember just loving that story when I was a kid, so it's so much fun for me to read this one at Christmas time. It always makes me wish I had a magic purple crayon of my own. What would I draw??? I might just re-read this to my class and have them draw a picture with their purple crayon. Wonder what they'd come up with?

 I love, love, love David McPhail stories! Or it's his illustrations I love. Or both! I don't know. I just know you've got to read this book if you haven't already! It's about a little boy who discovers that Santa left his book (with the names of all the children and the gifts they should receive) behind. He runs outside but just misses Santa. He's a little boy who can't read so he makes a big B in the snow hoping Santa will see it and return. Santa does, and he takes the boy with him to help him deliver presents. On their way over the ocean a large waves rocks the sleigh and Santa's glasses fall into the ocean. He needs the little boy's help to read the book now. In the end, the little boy learns to read.
There are tears in my eyes just writing about this. It always makes me cry! This is one of my very favorite stories!
Here's a freebie you can grab if you want to. Your kiddos can draw a picture of what they'd like for Christmas on the bag. I'm actually going to copy a class set and just keep it on my desk for the next time one of the kids starts talking about what they want for Christmas. Someone started that conversation the other day but we had somewhere to go and I could hardly get the class to stop talking about it. So next time, I'll just whip this out and we'll spend a few minutes on the subject.

 

clip art from KPM Doodles. Cute, huh?

I'm not going to write much about this. Splat probably speaks for himself. If you want a great activity to do with this book, please pop over and visit my sweet friend Barbara at GradeONEderful. We'll talk about characters and setting, beginning, middle, and end and use her recording sheet when do.

I hope you'll link up some of your favorite Christmas books! Please copy the button below and link back this post. Thanks!