Welcome back to Day 2 of the Virtual Advent Tour! I hope you’re enjoying the weekend so far.

Today’s host is Bridget of The Ravell’d Sleave, whose family is commemorating a major milestone event today. Head over to her blog to read all about it.

Be sure to stop back tomorrow for our next stop on the Virtual Advent Tour!

If you’re enjoying the Virtual Advent Tour so far, consider joining our merry band of writers. You can find the current schedule on yesterday’s post. Just leave a comment letting me know what date you’d like to claim!

More holiday links:

• Drops is doing their annual Christmas pattern giveaway through Dec. 25.
• The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge is underway now through Jan. 6. In addition to reading holiday-themed books, there’s also a category for watching themed movies and for reading books with children.
• Riveted is letting you read recently published YA novels for free on their site during the lead-up to Christmas with their annual 25 Days of Christmas celebration. I can’t endorse any of them personally, but there are several authors I’ve enjoyed on the list.

Welcome to Day 1 of the Virtual Advent Tour! I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, if you celebrated it, and a great final week of November if you didn’t.

Today is the first day of December, and, as with any traditional paper Advent Calendar, it marks the first door of our 24-day calendar to be opened. What will we find behind each one? It will vary from destination to destination, so I urge you to visit each day to see what our bloggers have in store for you.

Today’s host is Nan from Letters from a Hill Farm, who has a fun post about a different type of virtual Advent calendar (and cards).

There is still time to sign up! We’d love for some more bloggers to participate. Wondering what’s involved? Go here. I think you’ll find we’re a supportive, enthusiastic bunch, so however casual or formal you want to go, we’ll be appreciative. Here’s the schedule as it currently exists:

1: Nan
2: Bridget
3: sprite
4: sprite
5: Nan
6: raidergirl3
7: Judith
8:
9: Rudi
10:
11: Kat
12:
13:
14: Judith
15:
16: Kat
17:
18: Jo Kay
19:
20: Constance
21: raidergirl3
22:
23: Rudi
24: Bridget

A few final notes:

• I promised a badge and have one now in 1200px and 400px. Let me know if you want a different size or need help downloading them.
• I am a night owl, so I’m writing these posts before I go to bed in the wee smalls and then scheduling them to go live between six and seven a.m. EST in the U.S. If posts are live at our destinations as I’m writing, I’ll share a direct link to that post and give you a teaser. If they aren’t, I’ll give you a link to the author’s blog and will try to update my post later in the day with more specifics. If there’s no Virtual Advent Tour post live when you stop by a site early (I know some of you are up way before the sun!), please check back later. It’ll be worth a return visit!
• If you are a day’s destination and like to receive feedback/have conversations with your visitors, please make it as easy as possible to comment on your post. We like to leave you notes, but don’t always have access if you have to log into some other site, like Facebook or Gmail, to comment. Obviously, though, that’s up to you, because I get how annoying spammers are.

That’s it! See you back here tomorrow!

As I learn about other free or low-cost Advent events around the web, I’ll let you know. If you hear of others, leave me a note in the comments and I’ll promote them.

• Courtney of Be More with Less is running her 31 Days of Gifts You So Deserve, an emailed Advent calendar of what looks to be quieter, low-cost suggestions for a balanced December.
• Two knitting patterns where the instructions are given in short, daily chunks: Christina Campbell’s Project Peace 2018, which is a cowl supplemented by peace-centered posts at The Healthy Knitter, and Tricia Weatherston’s Advent Scarf 2018, which is a scarf comprised of Japanese stitches. (It started the day after Thanksgiving, so there will need to be some catch-up if you want to give this to someone on Christmas Day.)

My folks went out to the town of Union yesterday to buy their Christmas tree. We tromped all over the farm hunting for a tree with branches strong enough to hold their heavy ornaments and soft enough not to prick fingers and in the Goldilocks range for size.

Finally we found an interesting one and decided that would be best:

This is a concolor fir. The branches seem firmer than most firs, and the needles long but not sharp. And it has a citrusy piney scent, which smells delightful.

I think my folks picked well, don’t you?

Mum, Dad, and I made dozens of Spritz cookies this afternoon, but the cookie press broke in the midst of the final batch. Mum was not deterred and improvised with the last of her dough, and I used up all the sprinkles I would otherwise have needed to return to their containers with some decorating that looks done by someone more four than 44.

The snowman, provided for comparison, is the size of the average Spritz cookie.

Tomorrow, we’re off to get them a tree and to get it inside before the rain begins in the evening.

I saw my first inside Christmas tree on my bike ride Sunday. That just made me feel stressed. But seeing this, tonight, on my walk back from leaving some books at the Little Free Library in the park? Exactly what I needed…

Speaking of Christmas, I’m running the Virtual Advent Tour again this year. If you’ve already left me a comment saying you’d like to join in, awesome! I’ll be emailing you after I get back to D.C. next week with confirmation and dates. But there’s still lots of space for other folks to join in, so please do!

This year marks the fourth time I will play host to the Virtual Advent Tour. I can’t believe it’s time to embark on the process once more!

If this is your first time here at the winter holidays, welcome! The Virtual Advent Tour is a bloggers’ take on the traditional Advent calendar in which each day in December leading up to Christmas Day you open a door to unveil a hidden scene or piece of chocolate or some other treat. 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.

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 — from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa, from Festivus to Solstice, and from Christmas to something I’ve never heard of but that I’ll learn about from you — and who wants to share them with us. We love reading about all kinds of holiday celebrations and the traditions you’ve developed around them!

Would you be willing to share a winter holiday post one or two days next month? You’d know the date(s) ahead of time (and can request a specific one if you’d like), your post can be as simple or as complex as suits you, and there’s no need to tell me what you’re going to write about in advance. Folks have shared favorite holiday music, charities, recipes, religious calendar dates, literature, local events, memories, and traditions both old and new, to name some of the topics from years past. All that I ask is that you have your post published by midnight your time the evening before the date(s) you pick, so I can link to it in my post and direct visitors your way. (Speaking of visitors, make sure leaving a comment on your blog is as barrier-free that day as possible if you’d like folks to respond.)

If it 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 and will create a 2018 Tour button/badge folks can use if they want to.

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

Update (11/27/18) (more…)