Welcome to signups for this year’s Virtual Advent Tour. 2020 marks my sixth year as host of this annual event.

2020 has been a hard year for everyone, and the current world scenario doesn’t suggest the upcoming holidays are going to be any easier. We’re all thinking about how to celebrate differently at a time when tradition is particularly dear. But there are some annual events that can continue unabated, and this is one of them! Our celebration has been virtual since Zoom was the sound you made trying out your new sled Christmas afternoon! (Depending on when you last went sledding, of course!)

As you likely know, the typical Advent calendar is a season-marking device, often paper, but sometimes crafted of other materials, to count down from December 1st until Christmas. Each day, you open a door to unveil a hidden scene or piece of chocolate or some other delight. The Virtual Advent Tour is a bloggers’ take on that. In our version, each morning I’ll point you to a post at someone’s blog in which they share something about their holiday season.

Would you be willing to share a winter (or summer, if you’re south of the equator) holiday post or two next month? You’d know the date(s) ahead of time (and can request a specific one if you’d like) and there’s no need to tell me what you’re going to write about in advance. Your post can be as simple or as complex and in whatever format suits you — text, video, or audio are all good.

If you’re looking for inspiration, folks have shared favorite holiday music, ways they’ve adapted to being away from family, charities, recipes, religious calendar dates, books, local events, memories, traditions both old and new, and more. And if you’re worried about repeating something you’ve said in an earlier past, well, that can be part of the fun, too. While some people get a new Advent calendar each year, my family has always reused ours.

If this sounds fun and you’d like to participate, please leave me a comment on this post telling me what date(s) you’d like. I’ll update this post as people claim days.

A few housekeeping notes:

While both the tradition of the Advent calendar and the timing skew Christian, the tour is inclusive and open to anyone who celebrates December holidays of any sort. We love reading about all kinds of holiday celebrations and the traditions you’ve developed around them!

I made 2020 Virtual Advent Tour badges in 800px, 400px, and 200px that you’re welcome to download and use on your blog should that be your kind of thing.

I tend to write my posts shortly after midnight my time (Eastern U.S.) and will schedule them to go live at 6 a.m. If your post is live when I’m writing, I’ll give a little preview and link directly to it. However, if it’s not, I’ll assume you’ll get it live at some point, and will just embed a song and a link to your blog’s homepage.

As a participant, you may find you’ll get more responses to your post if you allow open comments (comments that don’t require someone to sign in to Google or Disqus, for instance) on your blog for that day. Obviously that choice is entirely up to you, but I have noticed that trend in past years.

If you use social media, I’ve used the hashtag #VirtualAdventTour on Twitter without complication for the past couple years and assume we can make it work on other platforms, too.

Thanks in advance for making this one of my fun December traditions!

1: Sprite
2: Deb Nance
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5: kathy b
6: raidergirl3
7: Kat
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9: Deb Nance
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12: kathy b
13: Jo Kay
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15: Constance
16: Deb Nance
17: Marg
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19: Blue-Footed Musings
20: Jo Kay
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23: Deb Nance
24: Bridget