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!
Apparently what I’ve done with my extra hour of time tonight is to spend it knitting and listening to Christmas music. Quietly, of course, because Rudi shouldn’t have to have dreams of sugar plums dancing in his head quite this early.
Honestly, it’s not so much that I’ve been craving Christmas carols, but it’s an effort to get a handle on the holidays this year. The past couple years, holiday tasks I enjoy have started slipping through my fingers, leaving me feeling stressed. I thought if I got a bigger jump on some of them, I might be able to better appreciate the process and the month of December. Plus, my library lets you download three songs a week for free to keep and I get more options for my annual Christmas cd if I get twenty songs for free. So I started listening a couple weeks ago and have been spending a few hours each week auditioning music, as it were. The music ranges from good to bad, from traditional to modern, and from instrumental to pop. Plus, it includes a range of international singers I might not encounter otherwise. I mean, sure, I’m probably not likely to include a German lullaby version of “Rudolph,” but you never know. As my dad will tell you, I sometimes find some pretty weird songs.
Right now, it’s Jessie James Decker’s “Baby! It’s Christmas” that’s playing. It’s the last song on her album and the only one that will get a second listen. But I probably wouldn’t give it great odds unless it really grows on me with that next play later in the month.
Oh, and speaking of Christmas, I’ll open up signups for the Virtual Advent Tour on the 15th.
My Secret Santa presents from The Broke and the Bookish swap arrived a couple weeks ago and I’ve been remiss about sharing the goodies.
My package came from Louisiana from Emily. She sent me some fun gifts:
Emily sent me two books — Me Before You, which I’ve been wanting to read for years and A Court of Thorns and Roses, whose author, Sarah Maas, I’ve been curious about. She added Pride and Prejudice-themed book flags and a Cajun Survival Kit, which includes, among other things Spanish moss, a tabasco packet, and miniature crawfish and crab. It also contained a mosquito, which thankfully escaped during shipping.
Thanks, Emily! I’m looking forward to reading the books in the new year!
Our Christmas was very nice and included snowflakes drifting past the windows throughout the morning, Christmas tunes on the stereo, many wonderful presents, watching birds, calls with loved ones far away, and a delicious supper followed by A Pocketful of Miracles and the best trifle I’ve made in years (must have been all that laughter). It also included shoveling snow, just so you don’t get too jealous.
Now I’m going to sleep for many, many hours in a row.
I hope you had a lovely Monday and, if you celebrate, a very merry Christmas.
Technically, Advent concludes on the 24th of December because, as Bridget and others have pointed out, Advent is about the waiting and the anticipation. By the 25th, Christ and Christmas have arrived, so there’s no need to wait any longer. However, some Advent calendars include a door for the 25th, so I’m going to cheat and have one, too, albeit with only a brief post.
Christmas has arrived. In Connecticut, where I’m spending the holiday, snow fell overnight, so we’ll be having a white Christmas. It’ll just be my folks, Rudi, and me this year, so I suspect the day will move slowly and casually with lots of food, music, and movies interspersed with calls and texts from loved ones far away.
Not everything on my to-do list got crossed off, but enough has. We’ve made spritz cookies (Mum made the dough and the cookies, and Dad and I decorated) and trifle, which involved a lot of laughter on my part, as various parts of it fell apart. Mum (with the help of Rudi’s unflagging whipping arm) made homemade egg nog, which we drank last night — two ginormous, rich glasses apiece. We ran out of time for gingerbread, so that’ll be put off for a day or two.
I wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in the Virtual Advent Tour, from those who read posts quietly, to those who left comments, we were grateful for your companionship on this tour. A most sincere thank you to those who wrote one or more posts during the Virtual Advent Tour — Nancy (who stepped up to write a third post for me when I was feeling overwhelmed), Jo Kay, kathy b, radiergirl3, Bridget, Rudi, Kat, Elise, Nina, Molly Totoro, and Tobia. There would be no tour without your participation, and I’m grateful you were willing to take the time to share such personal, thoughtful reflections on your holidays. It has made December a real joy to visit your blogs and find out how your season was going. I hope you’ll all be back next year.
And in the meantime, Happy Christmas from my family to yours. May your days be merry and bright and full of light and joy and peace.
Happy Christmas Eve! I hope wherever you are in your Christmas preparations that you’re doing them in the vicinity of loved ones and with a mug or glass of your favorite holiday libation to sip from.
My to-do list is still long, so I am particularly grateful to Bridget at The Ravell’d Sleave, who volunteered to take on the role of host this final day of The Virtual Advent Tour. She has a great post on the hope, anticipation, and love of Christmas Eve.
