December can turn story time into a pile of books nobody finishes. Pick a few and repeat them. Preschoolers like knowing that the train comes back, or that the Grinch stays mean until he does not.
Read the excited ones early in the month. The Polar Express and Olive, the Other Reindeer have a journey in them. On the nights when everyone is already wound up, use Dream Snow or The Night Before Christmas and keep your voice slow.
You can stop The Night Before Christmas before the last pages if a small child is fading. The Grinch is harder to stop, because they wait for the noise in Whoville. Leave time for that one.
One Christmas book a night is enough. The rest of the stack can wait on the shelf where they can see it.
Keep the stack in one basket, not spread across the living room. On a night when they cannot choose, you choose, and you pick the one you can finish before the yawning starts.
