The 25 Best Christmas Books That Teens Won’t Want To Put Down
With the holidays around the corner, I’m starting to think about Christmas presents for my two teenage boys. Toys, gadgets, and clothes came to mind, but it’s hard to find the perfect gift for this age. They are particular! That’s why I began to think about Christmas books and stories. We’ve always loved reading together as a family. Reading together creates shared experiences that we will remember forever. It feels more akin to gifting an experience.
I thought back to the first “pandemic” Christmas – December of 2020 – when retailers tested out fresh new ideas about Christmas shopping. Our local bookstore came up with the idea of curating an Advent calendar of sorts – consisting of Christmas read-alouds specifically curated based on the age and interests of my boys. It took about one week, but then I picked up a big box with twenty-five individually wrapped and numbered books. Some were picture books, some chapter books – but all were beautifully selected and thoroughly enjoyable. There was a thrill each morning ripping open the book of the day to see what we had gotten – better than even a piece of chocolate. (Although there were mornings that we had those too!)
This year, I’ve begun putting together my own “advent calendar” of books for us, and I wanted to share some of my fantastic finds with you. The books on this list offer the perfect mix of holiday cheer, mystery, nonfiction, and fiction and the stories are relatable for teenagers today.
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Check PriceIn a shabby New York flat, Della sobs as she counts the few coins she has saved to buy a Christmas present for her husband, Jim. A gift worthy of her devotion will require a great sacrifice: selling her long, beautiful hair. Jim, meanwhile, has made a sacrifice for Della that is no less difficult. As they exchange gifts on Christmas Eve, the discovery of what each has done fills them with despair, until they realize that the true gifts of Christmas can be found more readily in their humble apartment than in any fine store.
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For almost seventy years, people the world over have fallen in love with Frank Capra’s classic Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life. But few of those fans know that Capra’s film was based on a short story by author Philip Van Doren Stern, which came to Stern in a dream one night.
Unable at first to find a publisher for his evocative tale about a man named George Pratt who ponders suicide until he receives an opportunity to see what the world would be like without him, Stern ultimately published the story in a small pamphlet and sent it out as his 1943 Christmas card. One of those 200 cards found its way into the hands of Frank Capra, who shared it with Jimmy Stewart, and the film that resulted became the holiday tradition we cherish today.
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Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist.
The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all.
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A father and a son are seeing each other for the first time in years. The father has a story to share before it’s too late. He tells his son about a courageous little girl lying in a hospital bed a few miles away. She’s a smart kid—smart enough to know that she won’t beat cancer by drawing with crayons all day, but it seems to make the adults happy, so she keeps doing it.
As he talks about this plucky little girl, the father also reveals more about himself: his triumphs in business, his failures as a parent, his past regrets, his hopes for the future.
Now, on a cold winter’s night, the father has been given an unexpected chance to do something remarkable that could change the destiny of a little girl he hardly knows. But before he can make the deal of a lifetime, he must find out what his own life has actually been worth, and only his son can reveal that answer.
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Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in.
Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs. As Dickens’ deadlines close in, Eleanor propels him on a Scrooge-like journey that tests everything he believes about generosity, friendship, ambition, and love. The story he writes will change Christmas forever.
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Blankets is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson's poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence.
Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again.
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Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story is a mashup of holiday and horror, a perfect novel for middle grade readers who like their Christmas stories with a side of spooky. A funny, scary middle-grade send-up of A Christmas Carol from bestselling Goosebumps author R. L. Stine.
Rick Scroogeman hates Christmas. He can't stand the carols and the pageants. He can't stand the lights and the mistletoe. But what he hates the most is having to watch the old movie A Christmas Carol every year at school. Since his name is Scroogeman, all of his classmates start calling him Scrooge. And he hates being called Scrooge.
But everything starts to change when three ghosts visit him. At first, he thinks it's a dream. But then he realizes that it might be a nightmare. A nightmare that could become real.
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On Christmas Eve five years ago, seventeen-year-old Holly Chase was visited by three Ghosts who showed her how selfish and spoiled she’d become. They tried to convince her to mend her ways. She didn’t. And then she died.
Now she’s stuck working for the top-secret company Project Scrooge—as their latest Ghost of Christmas Past. So far, Holly’s afterlife has been miserable. But this year’s Scrooge is different. This year’s Scrooge might change everything…
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Lila Santos is ready for her last winter break of high school. The snow in her small town of Holly, New York, is plentiful, the mood is as cozy as a fuzzy Christmas sweater, and she's earning extra cash working at the local inn—AKA the setting of the greatest film of all time, Holiday by the Lake—while moonlighting as an anonymous book blogger.
But her perfect holiday plans crash to a halt when her boss's frustratingly cute nephew, Teddy Rivera, becomes her coworker. Lila is type A; Teddy is type “Anything but Lila’s Way,” and the two of them can’t stop butting heads over tangled icicle lights and messy gift shop merch. But when they accidentally switch phones one afternoon, they realize they've both been hiding things from each other. Will their secrets—and an unexpected snowstorm—bring these rivals together?
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It’s Christmastime in London, and Sherlock Holmes takes on two cases. The angelic three-year-old child of a wealthy couple is the target of a vicious kidnapper, and a country aristocrat worries that his handsome, favourite son has mysteriously vanished from his London pied à terre. Holmes and Watson, aided by the colourful Heffie O’Malley, slip slide in the ice to ensure a merry Christmas is had by nearly everybody . . .
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A Christmas Eve snowstorm transforms one small town into a romantic haven, the kind you see only in movies. Well, kinda. After all, a cold and wet hike from a stranded train through the middle of nowhere would not normally end with a delicious kiss from a charming stranger. And no one would think that a trip to the Waffle House through four feet of snow would lead to love with an old friend. Or that the way back to true love begins with a painfully early morning shift at Starbucks. Thanks to three of today’s bestselling teen authors—John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle—the magic of the holidays shines on these hilarious and charming interconnected tales of love, romance, and breathtaking kisses.
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Marietta Stelle longs to be a ballerina but, as Christmas draws nearer, her dancing days are numbered – she must marry and take up her place in society in the New Year. But, when a mysterious toymaker, Dr Drosselmeier, purchases a neighbouring townhouse, it heralds the arrival of magic and wonder in Marietta’s life.
After Drosselmeier constructs an elaborate theatrical set for her final ballet performance on Christmas Eve, Marietta discovers it carries a magic all of its own – a magic darker than anyone could imagine. As the clock chimes midnight, Marietta finds herself transported from her family’s ballroom to a frozen sugar palace, silent with secrets, in a forest of snow-topped fir trees. She must find a way to return home before she’s trapped in Everwood’s enchanting grip forever.
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If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you're going to fall in love with My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers.
Whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or Kwanzaa, there's something here for everyone. So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy. You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.
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Finally: the perfect stocking stuffer for the crime fiction lover in your life! These eighteen delightful holiday stories contain laughs, murders, and plenty more.
This captivating collection, which features bestselling and award-winning authors, contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.
Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolò Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes’s one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s stolen diamonds. These and other adventures in this delectable volume will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to a Copenhagen refugee squat, from a palatial hotel in 1920s Bombay to a crumbling mansion in Havana.
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As the city grinds to a halt, twelve teens band together to help a friend pull off the most epic apology of her life. But will they be able to make it happen, in spite of the storm?
No one is prepared for this whiteout. But then, we can’t always prepare for the magical moments that change everything.
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When Molar Alan and his older brother, Aaron, fill out their Christmas wish lists front and back, the Santa at the mall informs the boys they won't be getting anything they asked for. Instead, he says, they will receive everything they never wanted. This isn't your garden-variety Santa; he's Dr. Chris Ringle, a pediatric oncologist who enlists the brothers as Santa's elves at the children's ward for the holidays.
Each boy is charged with a very special assignment. Aaron will befriend Madhu, a fast-talking boy on an organ transplant list who, though not Christian, has an insatiable curiosity and wants to learn all about the holiday.
Molar's task is considerably harder as he attempts to help a lonely little girl named Katrina. Katrina's surgery has left her scarred, and she has shut herself away from everyone. But it is through her that the true spirit of Christmas will touch the lives of all those around her in a way none of them would have foreseen.
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Be good or the Krampus will get you!
The folklore roots of Christmas under its many other guises (Yule, the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia) is examined in a different, darker light. The Winter Solstice is a time to be afraid. It’s the shortest day of the year. The longest night. In some parts of the world, the sun doesn’t rise at all.
Christmas time is truly the darkest and creepiest time of the year filled with devilish creatures lurking in the shadows waiting to get us. Best known is the Krampus who has been the subject of films and songs.
The Fright Before Christmas delves into the folklore of Krampus and his friends with the elf-like Tomten and the goblinesque Karakoncolas. The Belsnickel is ready to hit us with his switch of sticks and Gryla may drag you back to her mountain lair. And watch out for the Yule Cat ready to pounce!
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If you've watched and loved the movie Christmas with the Kranks, this book is where it all started! Imagine a year without Christmas. Imagine no crowded malls, corny office parties, fruitcakes, or unwanted presents.
That's just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they'll skip the holiday altogether. Theirs will be the only house on Hemlock Street without a rooftop Frosty; they won't be hosting the annual Christmas Eve bash; they aren't even going to have a tree. They won't need one, because come December 25 they're setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But, as this couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences - and isn't half as easy as they'd imagined.
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This one skews a bit young for the teens on your list. BUT...hear me out! This book is hilarious and has been a family favorite for years in my house. It's a must-read every year, and now it's been made into a movie!
When the Herdmans or “the worst kids in the history of the world,” show up at church for the free snacks and suddenly take over the Christmas pageant, the other kids are shocked. What ensues is nothing short of a hilarious yet heartwarming tale involving the Three Wise Men, a ham, scared shepherds, and six rowdy kids.
Frankly - Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys Herdman are really an awful bunch. They set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s toolshed, blackmailed Wanda Pierce to get her charm bracelet, and smacked Alice Wendelken across the head.
It's clear that they're up to no good this time too. But Christmas magic is all around and the Herdmans, who have never heard the Christmas story before, and they start to reimagine it in their own way.
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Every December, an envelope bearing a stamp from the North Pole would arrive for J.R.R. Tolkien’s children. Inside would be a letter in strange spidery handwriting and a beautiful colored drawing or some sketches. The letters were from Father Christmas.
They told wonderful tales of life at the North Pole: how all the reindeer got loose and scattered presents all over the place; how the accident-prone Polar Bear climbed the North Pole and fell through the roof of Father Christmas’s house into the dining room; how he broke the Moon into four pieces and made the Man in it fall into the back garden; how there were wars with the troublesome horde of goblins who lived in the caves beneath the house!
Sometimes the Polar Bear would scrawl a note, and sometimes Ilbereth the Elf would write in his elegant flowing script, adding yet more life and humor to the stories. No reader, young or old, can fail to be charmed by the inventiveness and “authenticity” of Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas.
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Deep in the southernmost part of Alabama, along the banks of a lazy winding river, lies the sleepy little community known as Lost River, a place that time itself seems to have forgotten. After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River. There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society, who do clandestine good works.
And he meets a little redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas when something so amazing happened that those who witnessed it have never forgotten it.
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The author of the beloved New York Times bestseller Wicked returns with an inventive novel inspired by a timeless holiday legend. In it, he intertwines the story of the famous Nutcracker with the life of the mysterious toy maker named Drosselmeier who carves him.
Hiddensee imagines the backstory of the Nutcracker, revealing how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how he guided an ailing girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on Christmas Eve. At the heart of Hoffmann's mysterious tale hovers Godfather Drosselmeier-- the ominous, canny, one-eyed toy maker -- who presents the once and future Nutcracker to Klara, his goddaughter.
Hiddensee: An island of white sandy beaches, salt marshes, steep cliffs, and pine forests north of Berlin in the Baltic Sea, an island that is an enchanting bohemian retreat and home to a large artists' colony-- a wellspring of inspiration for the Romantic imagination . . .
But Hiddensee is not just a retelling of a classic story. Maguire discovers in the flowering of German Romanticism ties to Hellenic mystery-cults-- a fascination with death and the afterlife-- and ponders a profound question: How can a person who is abused by life, shortchanged and challenged, nevertheless access secrets that benefit the disadvantaged and powerless?
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On Christmas Eve at Gorston Hall, the Lee family’s festivities are shattered by a deafening crash of furniture and a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs—in a locked bedroom—the tyrannical patriarch Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.
When Hercule Poirot offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man, but which one of them turned a special occasion into an occasion for homicide? The suspects will indeed be stirring this Christmas Eve...
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It’s Christmas, and for the first time in years the entire Birch family will be under one roof. Even Emma and Andrew’s elder daughter—who is usually off saving the world—will be joining them at Weyfield Hall, their aging country estate. But Olivia, a doctor, is only coming home because she has to. Having just returned from treating an epidemic abroad, she’s been told she must stay in quarantine for a week…and so too should her family.
For the next seven days, the Birches are locked down, cut off from the rest of humanity—and even decent Wi-Fi—and forced into each other’s orbits. Younger, unabashedly frivolous daughter Phoebe is fixated on her upcoming wedding, while Olivia deals with the culture shock of being immersed in first-world problems.
As Andrew sequesters himself in his study writing scathing restaurant reviews and remembering his glory days as a war correspondent, Emma hides a secret that will turn the whole family upside down.
In close proximity, not much can stay hidden for long, and as revelations and long-held tensions come to light, nothing is more shocking than the unexpected guest who’s about to arrive...
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If you love small towns, endearing relationships, food, animals, and a touch of murder, you will love this cozy mystery series.
With just two weeks until the highly anticipated Christmas on Main event, the tiny town of White Eagle, Montana, is all decked out for the season. With the annual tree lighting just around the corner, Tess and Tony are busy with their own holiday preparations until someone close to Tess is shot and killed in front of her own home.
Tess jumps in to help Mike track down the killer, believing the gunman to have been connected to the mystery surrounding her own father’s disappearance. Her theory seems plausible, and even probable, until Santa is found dead an hour before the annual Santa parade, messing up Tess’s theory and complicating things even further.
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I love the chance to cozy up with a warm blanket, a hot cup of cocoa, and a captivating Christmas book. Obviously, we can’t read one of these books every day. So I will mix in some of our favorites from days gone by… Check out some of our favorites for every age. You’re NEVER too old for a picture book!
Find Christmas Stories For The Young At Heart:
The 31 Most Beautiful Christmas Picture Books {That You’ve Probably Never Read}
22 Wondrous Winter Picture Books That Will Make You Want To Snuggle Up!
22 Fascinating Christmas Read Alouds The Entire Family Will Love {Seriously…}
15 Heart-Warming Picture Books About Kindness
Finding the right book – or really the “right” anything at all – for your teen can be tough. This year, I’m winning because I went beyond the tried and true cutesy tales of Santa (although I ❤️ those too! ☝🏼) and searched through many genres – mysteries, short stories, fiction, non-fiction, and so much more!
I’m always sharing my love of a good book with my boys, and many of these will pop up on our reading lists this holiday season. I guarantee you will find a Christmas book here that resonates with your teen and makes their holiday season even more magical. You never know, the perfect book might even start a conversation. Enjoy those connection moments, mamas!
DON’T FORGET TO PIN THIS FOR LATER!
So, let’s agree to step back from the gift cards (but no need to completely step away) and find some great holiday reads! Check out some of these other ways to enjoy the holidays together!
