You know what happens when you write a blog post while listening to holiday music? Your blog posts have titles oddly reminescent of Christmas songs. Fortunately, I’m a scathingly brilliant writer so I can tie in those songs to what I want to share.

I just wrote a post (on my other blog) about the best children’s books from 2010. You can take a peek right here if you want a few good children’s reads. But that started me thinking about favorite holiday reads. I can name a ton of children’s books I love…How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Polar Express, and A Cajun Christmas come to mind first because the Junior Halls loved those boooks. And I loved reading them. Though I still get choked up, trying to get through The Polar Express. Seriously. I can get a little ferklampt watching The Grinch, too. Probably because that silly cartoon takes me back to my childhood, sitting in front of an old black and white TV, singing along (the wrong words, of course) when all the Whos join hands to celebrate Christmas.

I love that short story, The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. And there’s a few novels, though slender, that I’ll read almost every December: Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke and Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. Oh! And who doesn’t smile when reading the editor’s response to Virginia O’Hanlon’s question: Is there a Santa Claus? You can read what newsman Francis Pharcellus Church wrote here. And one of my favorite Christmas poems is called “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti. You’ll recognize the last stanza, when you see the line, “What can I give him, poor as I am?”

And now, I know just what I want from you this Christmas! What’s your favorite holiday read? Children’s or adult, novel, short story, or poem…it doesn’t matter. And you know what else? You don’t even have to wrap it in pretty paper. Just leave a pretty, little comment.

(You were starting to wonder how I’d tie that song title in, weren’t you? Seriously? I was, too.)