Today marks the middle of November, so it seems like a good time to announce that I’m going to run the Virtual Advent Tour once again.
In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, on each December morning leading up to Christmas, I’ll point you to a post at someone’s blog in which they share some aspect of the holiday season — akin to the treat or scene you get opening the door on a traditional Advent calendar. I believe this marks the 10th year a full 24-day tour has run (a mini two-week version ran in 2006 before expanding the following year and in 2014 the tour was on hiatus).
While the concept skews Christian, the tour is inclusive and open to anyone who celebrates holidays of any kind during the month of December and wants to share them with us. Tell us what you do for Hanukkah. Explore how you observe the principles of Kwanzaa. Air your grievances for Festivus. Talk about the importance of the changing seasons for the Solstice. Share your favorite Christmas menu. We love reading about all kinds of holiday traditions and celebrations!
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 you’d like, and there’s no need to tell me what you’re going to write about in advance. Folks have shared favorite holiday charities, recipes, religious events, songs, books, local events, memories, and old and new traditions, to name just a few 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.
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 work on a badge for this year in case people want to use it.
Thanks in advance for making this such an enjoyable December tradition!
Last month I took part in the bookish holiday Secret Santa event that The Broke and the Bookish, #TBTBSanta, runs every year.
Gina of Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers was my awesome Secret Santa. As you can see, she was remarkably generous, offering me gifts to open 12 days in a row. I do love surprises:
Paddington arrived with 12 numbered parcels. While I was oohing and aahing and hunting for package #1, Paddington raided the cupboards, since he was feeling a little peckish from his journey.
Once he was feeling like his normal, growly self, he gave me a hand with opening the presents.
The packages contained all sorts of goodies, from cute Japanese stationery …
… to adorable stickers, which Paddington thought we should immediately use on the Christmas cards.
There were a lot of books! Paddington loves a good story and is spending much of his time getting caught up on some fun books:
Eventually he started inviting others in the household to join him for story time:
(I could totally have edited out the vacuum cleaner, but a) real life and b) then you’d have missed Corey lying there on the floor, waiting to hear what’s going to happen next.)
Thank you so much, Gina! This was a wonderful package and I had such a fun time opening every single gift. I can’t wait to start reading! Now I just have to choose which book to begin with!
(And thank you to Jamie at The Broke and the Bookish, who organizes this international gift exchange each year. It really is a blast!)
Guys, we made it. Whether by hook or crook, no matter how much we rush or how little we sleep, Christmas will arrive tomorrow. So in these final hours, I hope you are able to slow down, enjoy some Christmas music, hug your loved ones (in person or virtually), and ponder the blessings of the season, no matter how humble or unusual they might be this year. Then get some sleep. After all, tomorrow is Christmas!
Behind the final door in this year’s Virtual Advent Tour is, as it was last year, Teri at Henningsen Happenings. Teri has written about how her Christmas has changed this year and how she’s trying to make the most of it.
Thank you, Teri, for sharing this blog post with us and for taking part in the tour once again.
As you probably remember, I gave serious consideration to not doing the Virtual Advent Tour this year. I’m so glad, though, that you all convinced me that together we could make it work. Through this group effort of ours, I think we put together something pretty nice that I really looked forward to reading every day this month and that I hope you did, too.
So, as they sing on my favorite holiday special, Christmas Eve on Sesame Street,
Keep Christmas with you
All through the year.
When Christmas is over,
Spread some Christmas cheer.
These precious moments,
hold them very dear.
And keep Christmas with you
All through the year.
For our penultimate stop, the Virtual Advent Tour heads back to Bridget at The Ravell’d Sleave. Today, Bridget shares some thoughts about adaptable traditions during the holiday season.
Thank you, Bridget, for another great post! I also appreciate all your support for the Virtual Advent Tour and for your ongoing participation!
One of my favorite Christmas albums and my favorite Christmas season concert came last year from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. She knew when we saw her last December that her pancreatic cancer was not treatable, but despite being sick she swore she’d go down singing because what else was there? She died this fall, but not before work had begun on this stop-animation of one of her holiday covers:
We had a vacant spot for today’s antepenultimate stop in the Virtual Advent Tour that yesterday afternoon Cindy of Cindy’s Love of Books offered to fill. I joyfully accepted her offer and look forward to reading what she has to say about the holidays. I’ll update this post when I log back in later today.
Thank you, Cindy, for jumping into the fray at the very last minute and for taking part in the Virtual Advent Tour after a couple years away! Welcome back!
Check back here tomorrow for the penultimate stop on the Virtual Advent Tour.
This morning at 5:44 EST (10:44 UTC) is the Winter Solstice, marking the darkest day of the year. However, however! Even today, sunset is coming smidges later than it did yesterday. And that’s going to keep happening. We aren’t going to be able to notice it for a while, since we get only seconds more a day. But seconds add up to minutes and minutes up to hours. We just have to be patient and have faith, and in the meantime light the lights, sing the songs, and celebrate what we can. I choose to celebrate all of you, who came together this season to make something I’ve enjoyed quite a lot. Thank you.
And, so, today the Virtual Advent Tour heads to Deb Nance at Readerbuzz. Deb has a suggestion for those of us feeling a little adrift this holiday season: start a tradition!
Deb, thanks for joining the Virtual Advent Tour again this year and for writing a great post!
