Christmas School 2025

We don't take much of a summer break over here but we always take December off from our normal school routine. We still do independent reading which everyone does every day/night here, occasional math lessons, and occasional handwriting pages but mostly we focus on memory-making holiday activities together. Here are our 2025 Christmas school plans:

👨‍🍳 Baking holiday treats (mostly from Sweet Indulgence)
🎨 Christmas decoration and gift art projects
📖 Read-aloud of The Angel Tree (plus our Christmas picture books we've been re-collecting after losing every book we owned)
🎶 Hymn Bible study by Not Consumed
✍️ Journaling about holiday fun
🎧 Sonlight's Christmas podcasts

Plus lots of free time to play, watch movies, play games, hang out as a family, pursue non-Christmas activities, etc.

We're all very excited. 

Creston, British Columbia

Over the weekend my family and I made our first international trip! We've done so much USA traveling (long-time readers likely came here back when we were full-time RVers) but this was a whole new experience for us.

I'm detailing it all below but you can also just watch a quick YouTube short if you're interested but not that interested. 

First, passports. We first started this process in 2013. We got our passport photos taken and started filling out applications, then moved further from the Canadian border and stopped pursuing it all. We kept having babies and then even when we moved up north again we never pursued it because of the cost for each new child.

But!

A few months ago we learned two very helpful tidbits
1- A passport card, good only for driving and not for flying, is much cheaper than a full passport that allows you to fly
2- Children under 14 can accompany their passport wielding parents for FREE using only a birth certificate

That changed everything! 

We had passport photos taken (Hubby used Walgreens and had to have his remade because they sized it wrong, I used Staples with no problems) and we took those + our applications to a post office to complete the process. FYI, they do take your original birth certificate (+ marriage license,  in my case) and mail that in. The paperwork said 6-8 weeks but we both got our passport cards + documents in 3 weeks.

After carefully triple-checking checking the website for what's allowed to cross borders, we packed lunches and hit the road! 

For this first trip we stopped in Creston,  British Columbia. It was a cute small town and a perfect place to practice international travel. It was very similar to the US with only minor adjustments (kilometers per hour instead of miles per hour, for example) that I am sure will gradually be more profound as we travel up the country/across provinces in the future. 

Saddest story: Creston has not one but two bookstores and we missed both of them, not realizing they closed at 4pm! :(
Epilogue: I announced before we left that I hoped to find a Canada fridge magnet or Christmas tree ornament, a 100% cotton touristy sweatshirt, and maybe a mug. I came home with none of the above. 

Fun things:
- Customs was super easy both ways, 10-15 minutes with no problems
- We didn't stay for the show but we walked past a band setting up for their show- an ACDC cover band called BCDC!
- We recognized about 10-50% of the brands represented in each grocery story aisle, and quite a few of the brands we did recognize had different labels! (Many with French subtitles)
- Overall the processed food seems slightly "healthier" in Canada... better oils, fewer additives, etc
- I saw a Canadian version of a redneck and I'd love to know what they're called! He was essentially a USA redneck (dirty pants, work boots, inappropriate joke to the cashier, belly poking out of shirt) but his shirt had a Canadian flag instead of a US flag.
- Bathrooms are called washrooms.
- Only our border patrol person had an accent. 

Canada books we have loved: The Adventures of Phillippe (middle grade secular) // Anne of Green Gables (middle grade, secular) // Good Morning,  Sunshine  (picture book, secular) // Juddie (middle grade, secular) // The Meeting Place (adult, Christian) // Mystery at Chilkoot Pass (middle grade, secular) // No Ocean Too Wide (adult. Christian) // Out of the Woods (picture book, secular) // Owls in the Family (middle grade, secular) // The Trumpet of the Swan (middle grade, secular)  

Have you been to Canada? What places do you recommend?

In Or Out Book Tag

Katie put up this fun book tag video (which I watched while making lunches for our Canada trip!) and I wanted to play,  too!

BOOK TAG QUESTIONS:
Reading the last page first... I am OUT!

Enemies to lovers... I'm just not super into romantic stories in general but I liked Tacos for Two so I'll say I'm halfway in?

Dream sequences... I don't think I've encountered these much but I think I'm probably out.

Love triangles... Again, not a big fan of romance. But I'll say in. I'm currently thinking of Bailey Flanigan's love triangle in the Baxter Family books.

Cracked spines... Firmly out. Nope, nope, nope! 

Back to my small town... I'm in. Love it. 

Monsters are real people... Out. Just not for me.

No paragraph breaks... Very out. Also out when it's one long book with no chapter breaks.

Multi-generational sagas... so in!!! Family books are s favorite for me.

Re-reading... In, for sure.

Artificial intelligence... Fully out if you mean AI-written books. I'm in for stories about it (I'm thinking I Think I Was Murdered) but I don't want to read about it all the time or anything.

Drop caps... I'm not really in or out. I guess I'm firmly out in children's books because it's confusing to some new readers but I don't mind it in books for adults.

Happy endings... So in!

Plot points that only converge at the end... In... as long as it's well-done!

Detailed magic system... Out. I'm not a fantasy fan. The Magic system in Fawkes is about as detailed as I can handle 😆.

Classic fantasy races... Elves, dwarves, etc. Out. Though I am currently writing a graphic novel for my children that involves Christmas trolls.

Unreliable narrators... I'm in but I want this to be rare. 

Evil protagonists... Out.

The chosen one... Mostly out, I think. 

When the protagonist dies... OUT!!!

Really long chapters... I'm out unless they have section breaks within the chapters. Reading for an uninterrupted 30-minute stretch isn't currently doable in my life... but once it is again, I think I'll still prefer shorter/section breaks.

French flaps... Out, but I'll still read a book that comes with them.

Deckled edges... Out! These bug me so much. They pull me out of the story when page-turning isn't instant and seamless.

Signed copies by the author... In. I just got my kids a signed copy of the newest Green Ember novel for Christmas!

Dog-earing pages... Out!! Oh, so out. 

Chapter titles instead of numbers... Out. I like knowing how many chapters are left and repeatedly estimating when I'll finish a book based in that information. Yesterday one of my kids was annoyed with a book with chapter titles for this very reason and I realized this might be a common thing! 

October Reading

October was a month of much needed autumnal bliss. We had family visitors for a few days and a few friend dates, a few fun events/activities, lots of time outside, and a decent number of nights cozied up with a good book!

At the beginning of the month I decided to read the Sweater Weather series because of a gushing post I read on a Christian fiction blog. Courtney Walsh wrote one of the books so I didn't think to check out if they were indeed Christian. The first book used the words "boobs" and "sexy" enough times that I started to really doubt that this was actually a Christian series. I read a Christian book review and a few Goodreads reviews and decided to abandon the series. I'd still happily read Courtney Walsh's offering but hers is sadly the only one not available through my library!

GROWN-UP READS
📖 How to Study the Bible Intentionally (Christian, nonfiction)... Incredibly helpful! Ready to slide back out of my Bible study slump!
📖 The Perfect Rom-Com (Christian, but really just clean, fiction)... overall this was fine but it was really not at all what I was in the mood for. I may have liked it more if I'd read it at a different time but I can still see the cuteness objectively.
📖 The Second Story Bookshop (Christian but basically just clean, fiction)... Overall, this was a fun autumnal read. This romance featured lots of kissing and a female MC who already had a boyfriend when the sparks started to fly with the male MC but I overall liked it.
📖 The Tipping Point (secular,  nonfiction)... I've intended to read a Malcolm Gladwell book for years! I am so fascinated by social science books like this. I'll definitely read more.

📚 Plus applicable sections of The No-Cry Nap Solution // What to Expect: The First Year // The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding // The Wonder Weeks

📺 My oldest read The Hobbit so we watched all three Hobbit movies together. They're so lovely at times but good grief, so violent! I was very excited for these and kept saying I couldn't wait for our cozy autumn Hobbit parties. I snuggled in with a mug of tea and pretty quickly realized this was not going to be a sweet cozy movie 😅

YA & MIDDLE GRADE READS
📖 The Brushmaker’s Daughter (secular,  middle grade, historical fiction)... This WWII fiction focused on a Jewish young lady whose father is blind. They found refuge working in a brush factory that employed several other blind people. I really liked it! I love this author's WWII books and am always surprised that she can write so many WWII stories That all feel different to me.
📖 The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle (secular, middle grade, fiction)... I really enjoyed this clever mystery and can't wait to see what my seventh grader thinks!
📖  Operation Grizzly Bear (secular,  middle grade, nonfiction)... This was excellent middle grade nonfiction for nature lovers! It's about Jean Craighead George's brothers and (tiny) little bits of her + her childhood are sprinkled in.
📖 Road Trip Rescue (Christian, middle grade, fiction)... I thoroughly enjoyed this one and will pass it along to my upper middle grade children. So far one of them has read it and she loved it + asked for book 2.
📖 Puppy Pirates #1: Stowaway! (Secular, chapter book, fiction)... Cute, fine, but those who don't allow twaddle won't love it.

*I also finished a Harry Potter buddy read with one of my kids and we all worked through The Ology, Atlas Adventures, and Home Ec for Everyone in homeschool (along with our regular subjects). 

PICTURE BOOKS WE LOVED: Library Mouse: Home Sweet Home // Nightsong // A Puppy for Annie 

Bookish links- November 2025

November new releases I'm excited about: The Fault Between Us 

Who else is excited about the Christy awards?! 

Amy and her sister's bookcrawl trip is so fun! Day 1 // Day 2 // Day 3

Wind in the Willows book club  

Modern Biblical retellings

Dollhouse/diorama scenes from so many books- The Hobbit // The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  // Little House on the Prairie // Charlotte's Web // Corduroy 

Christian historical fiction Lynn loves 

Such sweet autumn art! 

10 (Christian) novels inspired by timeless tales 

Turn board games into books 

Adorable book tea infuser 

I'm hoping to watch I Heard the Bells later this month- a movie of the true story behind A Christmas Carol! 

I was looking for a cute tea/teapot print for my tea hutch and came across two bookish options I thought I'd show you! Books & Tea // Whimsical Tea Party 

I also thought these Ash Elizabeth prints were so sweet- Li-Bear-Ian // Mouse Reading Under Mushroom 

This article made me think so much about how different generations have shaped trends in Christian fiction! (For example, think about how much WWII fiction came out in just a few years' time, all the time slip that hit the market in a few years' time, how Christian YA is almost exclusively fantasy now, etc) 

I love the idea of this Christian book subscription service (like Book of the Month, but Christian!), especially when I saw that it can be paused. 

I pove this cozy Hobbit quote/print about home! 

If my child sees me on my Kindle will they know I'm reading? 

100% cotton Paddington Bear pajamas! 

A friend did this Christmas hymn study with her kids last year and recommended it so we'll be giving it a try! 

A Christian picture book that explains foster care to kids 

How to read 50 books a year 

Leadership books for kids and teens  

How to teach reading with strategies that actually work 

I always love Faith's Christian nonfiction reading vlogs!