Advent Christmas Story - Tree Decoration Books

Christmas Tree Advent Story Books

 - 2025 Update -

As Christmas approaches once again, I decided to update these lovely ornamental advent calendar books to bring them up to the high standard of printing Bambu Lab printers are capable of. I uploaded a Print Profile that contains optimised books for support free printing, print-in-place hinges, and different printing options for creating beautiful covers.

The books are now optimised for printing upright, along the long edge with the hinge at the top - This allows for support free print in place functionality and reduces the footprint so that all 25 books can be printed at once. I also included a single book and a batch of 6.

There is a blank cover with space for adding your own numbers or decorations, as well as assembled covers for numbers 1-25.

There are also separate Number Discs for more complex colour/printing schemes that you might think of.

A second Print Profile was also added - This contains 24 QR code Cards that fit inside the books. Scanning a QR code provides a URL to that day's story snippet of Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol. This service is graciously provided by user @hparsons 

Story

While decorating our Christmas tree, my wife told me of a decoration she remembered from childhood. A series of mini books that would hang on the tree, each one telling a small part of a Christmas story. As the month of December went on, each night, she would get to read one more part of the story. Now that we have a son of our own, I wanted to recreate this magic with 3D printed boxes, each one numbered for Advent, and containing a part of a famous Christmas story.

The books can be hung on the tree and are held closed with a small magnet, the hinge of the book is "Print in Place". Each book is numbered 1 to 24 and contains a small paper booklet telling a small part of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

The book can be printed in an open position with the cover against the build plate. For this reason, the numbers and decorative corners are printed separately and glued on after. I'm working on a version that can be printed in a closed position, but that work is ongoing.

Printing a book takes approximately 2 hours at a layer height of 0.2 mm, and the numbers and corner filigrees take about 15 minutes and 6 minutes respectively. Printing the numbers and corners separately also allows the use of different coloured filament.

To finish the book, you'll need a short length of pretty ribbon to hang the book, and a pair of small magnets 3 mm x 2 mm that push fit into the print.

Magnets Amazon ASIN - B003BKPIN0

A Christmas Carol - By Charles Dickens

The story I used in my books is an abridged version of A Christmas Carol. Here is a link to a Google Docs template for the story I used - A Christmas Carol

To make the paper books, cut along the horizontal lines - Each Row is a book. Then fold along the vertical lines. If you wish, you can cut out the cover and glue the whole thing together with prit-stick, or glue it directly into the 3D printed book. I tried to staple the paper books together but it was kind of ugly, a clever crafter may sew the pages together. You can also use the provided template to create your own Christmas story to be told bit by bit over Advent!

Merry Christmas!