Does it ever feel like the holidays were a little more magical when you were a kid? Growing up, it always seemed like one day, as if by magic, every TV commercial was suddenly Christmas themed. Holiday movies like Home Alone or A Charlie Brown Christmas played reliably every day! Christmas season had arrived and it was joyful!

These days, with commercial-less streaming and everything on demand all year round, when does the holiday season actually start? And what’s the deal with all of our adult responsibilities getting in the way of Christmas anticipation and holiday joy?

Well, here at Juniper Books, we think holiday cheer doesn’t have to be left in the past. We have ways to mark the start of the Christmas season and establish new holiday traditions that we love to share. Every year in October, we launch a new design for our Christmas Classics book set. Even though we start working on it in the summer, by the time we launch, the temperature has dropped, the leaves are turning, and we get super excited that Christmas is just around the corner. 

When designing our 2023 Christmas Classics, we wanted to truly capture the youthful spirit of holiday magic. Our solution? We turned to a talented young artist named Zora to hand draw our jacket designs. 

“The style of my Christmas Classics design was based on old storybook illustrations, specifically in the 1975 children’s book The Night Before Christmas,” Zora said when asked about her inspiration for the 2023 Christmas Classics cover art which features Clara and the Mouse King from The Nutcracker. 

,” Zora continued, “I have very fond memories of spending a cold winter's day in Denver, Colorado, with my friends, watching The Nutcracker ballet. I wanted to incorporate the feeling of mystery and awe that follows after one sees the ballet for the first time.” 

The six Christmas stories in the set are all classics that are fun to read every year. From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens to The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman, the books look great on the shelf and are a great way to slow down and read with family and friends during the Christmas season.

Whether you’re honoring a long lived tradition, or looking to start a new one this year, our Christmas Classics book set makes for a nice addition to home bookshelves and holiday decorating plans. We love decorating our offices and homes during the holiday season with Christmas books. Our newest tradition: for two years in a row we’ve had talented, young artists design our Christmas Classics jackets! 

When it comes to spreading holiday cheer, giving gifts is a great way to go. If you’re shopping for a book-lover this year, you’re in luck! They will undoubtedly be thrilled with this 2023 Christmas Classics set. For a book-lover, the only thing better than buying books is receiving them as a gift!

So, if you do just one thing for yourself this holiday season, please take a moment to remember the magic of Christmas past. Anything was possible! In The Nutcracker, young Clara had such a vibrant imagination that even her toy came to life! Despite the pressures of modern life, you don’t have to be a serious adult all the time. As The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus likes to remind us, even Santa himself was a child once, and he never lost his holiday cheer even after growing up! 

Our Christmas Classics Book Set always includes these 6 books:

• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• A Merry Christmas by Louisa May Alcott
• The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
• Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope 
• The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann
• The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol

While the design of the Christmas book set changes every year, all previous holiday designs can now be seen and ordered on our custom website: junipercustom.com. 

Everyone of all ages deserves to experience the joy of Christmas magic. Story-time by the fire with hot cocoa and cookies will quickly have your home bursting with holiday cheer.