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.
Welcome to the penultimate day of the Virtual Advent Tour. In addition to being “the day before the day before the best day of the year,” Dec. 23 is the modern holiday of Festivus, a day for, according to Seinfeld, “the rest of us” who don’t celebrate religious holidays. Festivus is marked by a feast, a Festivus pole, the “Airing of Grievances,” “Feats of Strength,” and Festivus miracles. It is also the Night of the Radishes, a celebration in Oaxaca, Mexico, in which the root vegetables are carved into ornate scenes, like elaborate jack o’lanterns, which are then judged in a competition. The event was first celebrated in 1897 and has become so popular the city now supplies the radishes to those who wish to compete.
The host for today is Tobia at craftaliciousme, who blogs from Germany. Tobia shares her Christmas tree decorating habits in her post. Make sure you click through — she puts candles on her tree!
See you back here tomorrow for our final Virtual Advent Tour post!
It’s the final Friday of our tour, which means we’re heading into the home stretch for getting everything done. Rudi and I are hitting the road for Connecticut imminently in our attempt to beat an ice storm to my folks’ place.
The song for the day comes from John Lennon via Vance Gilbert, a folk singer who attended the same college Rudi and I did (although a few years before our tenure). Vance has a big, distinctive voice and is one of those singers they’d ask to kick off the gospel hour Sunday morning during folk festivals, partly because he really didn’t need a microphone to reach even the tents furthest from the stage and a sense of humor that lends itself to side conversations with the ASL interpreters about the signs they were using.
Today the Virtual Advent Tour door opens on Molly Totoro of my cozy book nook. Molly is a regular Virtual Advent Tour contributor and one of the few folks from the original tour who’ve migrated with us. Today she has a post that’s near to my Nutmegger heart in which she recounts a funny story relating to the Feast of Seven Fishes and shares a recipe for one of the dishes.
Happy Thursday, everyone! It’s the 21st day of December and the winter (or summer if you’re south of the equator) solstice. The shortest day of the year marks the start of Yule season (interestingly, did you know linguists think “Yule” and “jolly” both originate from one of Odin’s Old Norse names?), originally a pagan midwinter celebration beginning on the solstice that was later co-opted for Christian purposes. It’s also what’s called Blue Christmas, a Christian observance on the longest night of the year for those who are suffering from the loss of a loved one.
Today is the final night of Hanukkah and the final Wednesday of the Virtual Advent Tour. Can you believe we only have four days left?
A song for you:
We return to raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading for today’s post, which creatively combines her love of science, language, and Christmas and involves her high school physics students.
I’m going to give us a song or a film clip on posts this week, because we all need those extra few minutes to breathe deeply or sing loudly before facing the rest of the day. Since tonight will be the penultimate night of Hanukkah, I thought I’d share this favorite (which I think is from the New York City concert my family and I were lucky enough to attend when I was a kid):
For our final Tuesday of the Virtual Advent Tour, we return to kathy b at Compassionknit, who has a post for us on gingerbread creations. Yum!
