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.

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It was another long week here in the Burrow. Three after-hours events for work, plus a major deadline for another department that had me working late/early a fourth day. Plus tomorrow marks week five since Rudi went out to Salt Lake to help his mom, so I’m still holding down the fort here. I’m really glad to have tomorrow arrive without an early-morning alarm.

It does not arrive without plans, however:

• I need two more Coffeeneuring rides between this weekend and next to cross this annual fall tradition off my to-do list. I have several destinations in mind, including one on the other side of town and one in the next neighborhood over. I could do up to four just for kicks. It all depends on the weather and the willingness of my legs to pedal.
• Saturday night marks the final outdoor concert of the season. It will be brisk after the sun sets, so I anticipate a thermos of hot tea will accompany me.
• The lows drop again early next week, so I should probably go harvest that last crop of tomatoes I missed. Since it’s supposed to be pleasant during the day, maybe I’ll dig up my potatoes, too.
• I promised there would be a Virtual Advent Calendar announcement on Sunday, and so there shall be.
• Thanksgiving week is going to include a lot of tidying. (A Christmas tree needs space after all, and none currently exists.) But this weekend I’m starting by clearing off the couch and the coffee table and putting a dent on the space in between where all my work stuff ends up living.
• Two books should really go back to the library before it opens on Monday, so I should probably set aside time to finish them first.
• It is also conceivable that I could finish my sock this weekend. I’m thinking I’d like to wear them for Thanksgiving, so even if they linger on until next week, it will be fine.
• I’d also love to get some pie dough made so I can make a quiche for next week and have the crusts ready for some Thanksgiving pie baking.
• Apparently, Postcards to Voters has kicked back up already for the Georgia senate races, so I may do a little writing.
• And I’m going to catch up on some zzz’s. Have a good night!

What are you hoping to do this weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I’m not saying that the Burrow is overflowing with tomatoes, but the fall tomato bounty has been very good to me. And I’ve been pretty lucky so far in that they’ve continued to ripen indoors. The trifle/mixing bowl I’m holding had been full a week ago, and I’ve been moving them into other containers as they start to show signs of developing color. The tomatoes on the tart below were the ones that I moved into the fridge as they started to soften.

2. The colors last weekend were particularly vivid, and I had to stop several times to take in the beauty of the turning trees. I’m glad the weather cooperated for us all to be able to enjoy them, since I’m guessing the rain will have pulled many of the leaves to the ground.

3. We’re going to have a new president. Everyone knows it; it’s just taking some of them longer than we care for to admit it.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your lives lately?

The good news on the knitting front is that the heel has been turned and I’m on to the foot!

The bad news on the knitting front is that in the midst of last week’s … preoccupation … I temporarily forgot both to count the stitches on my heel needle and how to do do short rows. I mean, it’s fine. It’s fine! There were just two extra stitches on the heel. I temporarily considered ripping it all back and then I decided this is 2020 and that if the sock fits we do not toss things out for imperfection. And the short rows … I somehow decided to wrap about half the stitches the wrong way. Again, not a deal breaker; I just made picking up the wraps more challenging for myself. But as you can see, we’ve moved on. Now, as long as I remember to reorient the stitches to keep the heel centered when I start the toe decreases, we’re golden. (If none of that made sense the translation is: I messed up, I mostly fixed it, I may mess up again before we’re done.)

I started Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore tonight. I’d picked it up to be my waiting for the election results read. Instead it’s waiting to see how a coup is overturned in my own country read. It is not yet distracting enough, but I’m hopeful. About the book and our republic. Mostly.

I’m still listening to Alexandra Petri’s Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why while I wash dishes at night. I tried to keep listening one night after the dishes were done and awoke a couple hours later many essays into the future. This is way more a statement about my level of exhaustion than the writing.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are crafting and reading.

I seem to have taken a couple weeks off from Coffeeneuring. One weekend was rainy and the other … got lost.

Café Georgetown
3141 N St., N.W.
Saturday, Nov. 7, early evening
Conditions: Lovely

Saturday marked the combination of a beautiful day, the announcement that Joe Biden had clinched Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes, and low demands on my time. However, I futzed around until too late in the day for a lot of coffee places, and then I had the double challenge of needing to be home for a video chat with friends.

So I headed to Georgetown. Specifically to Café Georgetown.

I’d passed the café before, sitting as it does in the first townhouse in from Wisconsin Avenue, but I’d never stopped in. I’m excited to report that while I didn’t avail myself of them, the coffeehouse does offer some of the Middle Eastern treats I used to get at Simit and Smith before they closed. I opted for the more traditional chocolate chip cookie (heated at the barista’s suggestion) and a hot chocolate. I munched them in front of the restaurant next door’s darkened doorstep and watched people cruising through Georgetown sharing their jubilation at the political news of the day.

As with nearly everywhere on M or Wisconsin in Georgetown, bike parking requires finding a street sign to lock up to. Unless, of course, like me, you forget your lock and don’t realize it until you arrive. Then you might consider asking a nice couple with their own bikes parked next to them to watch yours while you run in and order. I have literally never done that before, but Saturday seemed like a day to trust in the goodness of people.

Total mileage: 2.2 miles

I struggled with this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic, Ten Book Titles That Would Make Great Song Titles, from That Artsy Reader Girl but I got there in the end. Here are ten from my TBR list:

1. The 10 P.M. Question
2. Always Emily
3. West of the Moon
4. This Is Not a Love Story (I feel like Taylor Swift may have already written this one…
5. Swing Sideways
6. One Last Stop
7. No Place to Fall
8. Love You, Hate You
9. Last Night in Montreal
10. I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears (obviously, a song for kids)