Six books on this site are about a first Christmas as a parent, in three versions per parent, and the titles are close enough that people order the wrong one. The difference is not decorative. It is who is talking.
Version one: the book is about them
First Christmas as Mommy takes her as the subject. Nobody hands you a manual the first December you spend as somebody's mother, and the book is about that — the traditions she inherited, the ones she is quietly inventing, and the small person who changed what the whole month is for.
First Christmas as Daddy does the same for him: the first year he wraps a gift that is not for a grown-up, the first time he is the one staying up to assemble something.
Buy this version when the gift is genuinely for the parent and about their new identity. It is the one that works if the marriage is the relationship in the room — one adult giving another adult something that says, you did a whole year of this.
Version two: the child is narrating
My First Christmas with Mommy is a child's-eye account: the smells from the kitchen, the coat that always smelled like outside, the hand that was there every time the room got too big.
My First Christmas with Daddy takes the same position from shoulder height — the lights seen from up on his shoulders, the crunch of paper, the nap that happened halfway through dinner.
These read aloud better than either of the other versions, because a child's voice on the page gives an adult reading it something to do. If the book is going to be opened in front of relatives on Christmas morning, this is the one to pick.
Version three: the baby is noticing
This is the one people overlook, and for a genuine first Christmas with an infant it is often the right answer.
On Our First Christmas Mommy is written as a small voice speaking up to her, and what it notices is the unglamorous part: the quiet feeds before sunrise, the ornament hung too low on the branch, the photograph nobody managed to take straight.
On Our First Christmas Daddy works the same way — the first tree the baby ever saw, the arms that carried them past it, the songs he hummed at three in the morning.
The distinction from version two is real and worth getting right. Version two is a child remembering. Version three is a baby noticing, which is the version that fits when the child in question is four months old and will remember none of it. It also, deliberately, credits the work nobody photographs.
So which one
Three questions, in order.
Is the baby under a year old? Version three. The others are written for a memory that does not exist yet.
Will it be read out loud to a room? Version two. It performs.
Is this one adult thanking another adult? Version one. It is the only version where the parent is the subject rather than the supporting cast.
Both names, in all six
Every one of these prints two names — the parent's and the child's — so you need both settled before ordering. That is worth flagging for the version three books in particular, which are frequently bought for a baby who arrived in November.
Ordering
All six are $39.99 and come in hardcover and softcover, chosen on the product page. A keepsake that is going to be brought out each December is worth having in hardcover; this is a book that will spend eleven months a year in storage and be handled by a growing child for the twelfth.
Books are printed to order in the United States with a two to four business day production window before shipping, and nothing is held in stock. December is the month when that window matters most, so order with room rather than relying on shipping speed.
Read both names back before you pay — they appear in your cart, at checkout and on your order confirmation. Personalized books cannot be returned once printed, though a mistake reported quickly can usually be caught before printing, and anything damaged or misprinted we replace free.
The rest of the seasonal titles are in Christmas & Holiday Stories. If the baby has not arrived yet, see choosing a new baby book before the birth; for the non-seasonal version of this gift, see what to give for Mother's Day besides a card.