35 days until Christmas said the sign when I went to the supermarket today! Time to start stressing about Christmas presents not bought and fitting the many parties in. At least it means we can start reading Christmas books! I have always loved the tradition of having books that are just read at Christmas and I can remember dragging them all out of the shelves when I was little and reading them at night by the tree.

One recent Christmas book that I love is Mortimer’s Christmas Manger. Mortimer is a mouse who lives in a house occupied by a family, he occupies a hole that is cold and just not very comfortable. It’s when he ventures out to look for a new home that he comes across the manger and nativity scene that the family have set up beside their Christmas tree. Mortimer promptly moves all the statues out of the little barn, including rolling the baby Jesus out of the manger and snuggling himself up in the hay. He loves his new house but is annoyed that each day the family reassembles the Christmas scene; that is until he hears the family reading the Christmas story together and realises who the baby is and what he means to the world.

© Jane Chapman

Although this is a story essentially about the nativity, it is done in a very gentle and subtle way, it’s not in your face and is quite a lovely quirky introduction to the traditional Christmas story. I love its humour, with Mortimer rolling baby Jesus out of the manger every night so he can sleep in the hay and Jane Chapman’s illustrations are just so divinely cute that Mortimer is irresistible.

||Karma Wilson’s gorgeous website||

||Mortimer’s Christmas Manger available online from Amazon||