My family underestimated how long it would take to accomplish our winter break Christmas Book Book-Off bracket to determine the top holiday story in our collection so here we are long after the tree and decorations have come down, still working our way toward the eventual winner.
Our book battle began with a round of 32 books loosely paired by title with the East and West sides each featuring 16 initial match-ups. That part took the longest because we’d planned to read a pair or two each night, but also wanted to continue reading our current family book, The Lifters by Dave Eggars. It was a hard feat to accomplish quickly. My family would argue one of the main reasons it took so long was Mom kept falling asleep. (I have no regrets).
Eventually, we made it through the round of 32 with some clear winners, some definitive losers and a lot of laughs.
You’d think the process would go faster in the second round as we’d already read the books once, but it didn’t. The sleeping mom situation was still an issue but so too were later bedtimes and the type of Christmas excitement that comes with having school-aged children. It was hard to settle down.
By New Years Eve, however, we’d managed to get down to the final four — but not without some controversy.
Given this was our first year of what may become an annual event — at least while the kids are still young — we didn’t give much thought to the ranking system of our books when we paired them up. With four of us voting (the cats didn’t count) we often ended our votes tied. Our original tie-breaker was to let whoever read the books get an extra vote (to encourage the kids to read to us) but that fell apart when the kids opted to get Dad, the undisputed best reader in the family, to read most of the books. When that happened, we assigned the books either heads or tails and asked Siri to flip a coin. Some books had to lose due to a coin flip and that could have been avoided if we’d paired them better.
Other match-ups were heart-crushing to choose between.
In the East bracket we found The Bear Santa Claus Forgot and The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas stood out amongst the rest. They ended up meeting in the Elite Eight group and one had to go. Popular thought around the household is that both books should have at least made the Final Four, if not the championship round.
I can’t remember the final tally, or even how it was ultimately decided but The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas went through.
Richard Scarry’s Christmas Mice also made it from the East in a much less difficult vote.
In the West, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cruised into the final four along with The Secret Christmas, though all of us agree that Rudolph made it in, not necessarily because we loved the book but that we loved how it came into our family.
When the children got old enough to understand giving, we decided that it would be a tradition for them to choose a book to gift each other every Christmas. We figured it’s an inexpensive and thoughtful present and it can be given from anywhere in the world they happen to be and thus makes for an easy-to-keep, long-term tradition for them as they grow into adulthood.
Anyway, my son must have looked at 100 books for his then-toddler sister and when he came upon Rudolph, he knew right away that was the book for her. And rightly so. At the time she was obsessed with the old-school movie and the song and pretty much everything else about the rosy-nosed little fella.
Over the years, the book has become one of our sentimental favourites.
Ultimately the Final Four included: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Secret Christmas, The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas, and Christmas Mice.
It was on Jan. 1 that we had to make the hardest decision yet. While it was clear to us all that The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas was headed to the final, nobody knew who would join it.
We all loved The Secret Christmas and the boys voted for it. Out of duty, my daughter voted for Rudolph. It was up to me. Did I vote for the best book or did I support my kid? I looked over at her little hopeful face and big blue eyes, remembering how much that book meant to her. Rudolph it was. But that meant we had a tie.
We decided flipping a coin wasn’t the way we wanted to send a book to the final so we debated for quite some time. It was deadlocked.
Eventually my daughter looked over at me and said: “Mom, it’s OK if you switch your vote. I know Rudolph is a good book and it doesn’t have to make the finals for me to love it.”
My heart simultaneously broke and burst with pride.
So, 30 books down, and just a winner to go. It’s The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas versus The Secret Christmas. Who will win? Stay tuned…
