I assume you also have a busy day ahead (mine involves some wrapping, a trip to the post office, and a couple neighborhood Christmas festivals), so let’s get right to the good stuff:

Today’s Day 16 of the Virtual Advent Tour and we return you to Nancy of Wyoming Breezes, who has a post for you about how her family spends their time together during the holidays.

Have a great Saturday and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Welcome to the third week of the Virtual Advent Tour!

Today, the tour returns to the other bipedal member of my household, Rudi at Random Duck. He’s got some Christmas-related trivia for you so that you can wow your friends and loved ones at parties and holiday meals.

See you back here tomorrow!

Welcome to Day 14 of the Virtual Advent Tour. There are ten shopping days left after today, so I know how I’ll be spending part of this evening.

Do you have a few people you still need gifts for? If they eat eggs and flour (or if you have satisfactory substitutes for those ingredients in your own kitchen), may I recommend whipping up a few loaves of my grandmother’s cranberry quick bread? You can totally get them going prior to watching the Christmas specials on tv tonight. And if you bake a loaf for yourself, you can snack on that during The Great American Baking Show.

Technically, it’s cranberry nut bread, but since Mum is allergic to nuts, they were never included in the loaves Gramma made for us. I’ll include that option in case you like nuts in your baked goods.

Cranberry [Nut] Bread

Sift together:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup sugar

In a separate bowl or measuring cup, mix together:

• 1 beaten egg
• 1 Tbsp melted shortening
• 2 Tbsp hot water (I use hot tap water, probably about the same temperature as I wash dishes in.)
• 1/2 cup orange juice (You could juice an orange and I have on occasion, but if you’ve got a carton of juice in the fridge, go with that for ease and speed.)

Stir together but don’t beat (emphasis Gramma’s) the dry and wet ingredients.

Fold in:

• 1 cup (washed) cranberries

Add:

• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional, but walnuts pair nicely if you decide to go that route)

Bake in greased bread pan at 325°F for 1 hour.

These instructions assume you will pop the bread out of the pan and present it that way. Allow it to cool and then wrap it first in plastic wrap (the orange juice makes the loaf a little sticky, and this helps keep things tidier) and then in tin foil for storage. Slap a label and a bow on it and you’re ready to gift. (I assume you could alternatively get a disposable aluminum loaf pan and hand it off in that if you so desire, but that feels like more work, rather than less.)

To serve, cut a generous slice (hunk, my grandfather would have said) of bread and slather it with butter. Pair it with a hot cup of tea.

I had forgotten how easy this recipe is. I’ll need to pick up some o.j., but I bought a bag of cranberries last weekend without realizing why I needed them.

See you back here tomorrow!

Today kicks off the second half of the Advent season. There’s still plenty of time to go! In addition to being the second night of Hanukkah, it’s also Saint Lucia Day, celebrated in Sweden, Norway, and other countries by having a young girl or woman wearing a candle-bedecked wreath on her head distribute saffron pastries or other baked goods in festivities tied to the seasonal rejuvenation of the light (Saint Lucy is the patron saint of light).

Behind today’s Virtual Advent Tour door we welcome Elise from Lovely Yarn Escapes. She provides us with some quick-knit Christmas gifts, as well as pointing us to recipes for two of the traditional cookies she makes for her family.

Finally, here are the answers to Monday’s carol quiz: (more…)

Today is the 12th day of December, the first night of Hanukkah, and the end of the first half of the Advent season. That’s hard to believe and painful to think about that final item, so let’s just move along, shall we?

Behind today’s calendar door is a post from Kat of As Kat Knits. She shares memories of reading to her children at Christmas when they were small and some favorite books from those days.

Also, in case folks still want to play yesterday’s Christmas music trivia game (because Rudi tells me it was too hard), I’m going to give it one more day before publishing the correct order. (And just so you all know, I came up with the list of songs and then tried my own hand at guessing before looking up the answers. I only got a quarter of them right.) So stop back tomorrow for answers and a post from a new host!

Happy December 11! Christmas is two weeks from today, which means some of you are nearly done wrapping, baking, and cleaning and the rest of us are really just getting started. Whichever way you fall, you’re doing great! You’ll be ready before you know it!

However way you cut it, though, folks are starting to get a little tired. So I thought maybe you might need to wake up your brains and see if you can put these 15 songs in order of when they were written. If there’s some question, go with the date at which the lyrics and melody were paired. (For instance, if you were picking a date for “Turn! Turn! Turn!” you’d place its publication in the 20th century for Pete Seeger’s composition, rather than in a date BCE, when Ecclesiastes was written down.) Get your holiday thinking caps on (I assume they’re red with white fur trim) and see how well you do.

Oh, and some folks work better when they’ve got music to listen to. Here’s Sharon Jones’ “Big Bulbs.” Think of it as my version of the “Final Jeopardy” jingle.

1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You”
2. “Hallelujah”
3. “Silent Night”
4. “Jingle Bells”
5. “Joy to the World”
6. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
7. “O Holy Night”
8. “White Christmas”
9. “Jingle Bell Rock”
10. “Silver Bells”
11. “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”
12. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
13. “A Holly, Jolly Christmas”
14. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
15. “Mary’s Boy Child”

I’ll post the answer tomorrow, when you’ll be delighted to know we once again have a host who’s not me! Join us then!