I really, really love children’s books. And I really, really love advent calendars. And both can be really, really pricey when you start getting obsessed with them.

That’s why I combined the two together into a free version with help from my local library.

This DIY advent calendar simply requires a library card and some wrapping paper. You don’t even need tape!

First, I visited the children’s section of Boca Raton Public Library and began grabbing books off the shelves. I tried not to be too picky. Like any of us, I have an affinity towards certain types of books, and I also tend to read too many award winners and not enough of everything else.

But one of the things I really wanted to do in this project was to force myself to discover, and study, new children’s books.

So I grabbed away and checked out 25 of them.

Whenever I check out a lot of books, I always worry that the librarians are going to raise an eyebrow. But the truth is that every year, their funders ask them to tally how many books have been borrowed. So a lot of borrows indicate that the facility is being used by its patrons. Funders like that!

I brought the books home and wondered how exactly I was going to do this. I had zero interest in wrapping every single book. So instead, I simply draped a cutting of paper over the spine and then rested another book on top of it to keep the paper in place, and so on.

When I arrived at the last book, I wrapped it in its entirety so it would create a nice “cover” over the stack. I’ll open this book on the 25th.

See you on the 1st!