Happy St. Nicholas Day and the second Sunday in Advent! I hope you awakened to find your shoes overflowing with treats and that you weren’t stolen off in the night by Krampus!

Behind door 6 of our Virtual Advent Tour is a post from raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading, who has the sole honor of having participated in every year of the Virtual Advent Tour. She has a post about the importance of little traditions at Christmas, particularly in times of stress and uncertainty, and shares a favorite holiday tune.

The Virtual Advent Tour is one of my favorite holiday traditions, so thank you for sharing it with us. We’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Happy Saturday! I hope you have lots of fun plans for this weekend. I have to work, but I’m definitely getting the fairy lights up around the perimeter of the living room and hopefully working on my Christmas cards. And tomorrow I’ll get a tree.

But, first, today! Behind today’s Advent calendar door, we find a post from Kathy B of CompassionKnit! She’s got some thoughts on Santa Claus for us today. (Cue Will Ferrell in Elf, here.)

See you all back here tomorrow!

Happy first Friday of Advent! I hope you have some seasonal beverages lined up to mark the end of the week. And Wikipedia informs me that today is National Cookie Day in the U.S., so I invite everyone to help us celebrate that important holiday! Do your part!

Once you have your cookie (what, some of them can be healthy breakfast foods!), check behind door number four and find a deep dive into the history of the Advent calendar from Rudi at Random Duck. Thanks, hon!

We’ll see you back here bright and early on Saturday!

Happy December 3rd! Christmas Eve is three weeks away. Today would be a great day to pour a seasonal drink and pull our your calendar and start doing some backward planning, particularly if you are crafting or shipping gifts this year. We still have lots of time. We can do this!

Behind our calendar door this morning, we find a post from Bridget at The Ravell’d Sleave, who has a thrilling tale of Christmas misadventure — family style — to share.

Sign up to host a day of the Tour here. Otherwise, see you back here tomorrow!

Welcome back to the second day of our Virtual Advent Tour!

Behind today’s door we have a post from long-time Tour contributor Deb Nance at Readerbuzz, with a joyful post you’re going to want to bookmark filled with her and her colleagues sharing holiday picture books. I now know how I’m going to start each workday before my morning calls.

Inspired to join us? Sign up here. And do stop back tomorrow for another mystery Advent reveal!

Welcome to the 2020 edition of the Virtual Advent Tour! I am your host, Sprite, and for the next 24 mornings (around 6 a.m. Eastern U.S. time), I’ll be directing you around the internet, where various bloggers will be sharing parts of their holiday celebrations with you. This is the 13th time we’ve held this event for the entire 24 days and my sixth year as host. I hope you enjoy this tradition as much I do. Should you want to get in on the fun, please leave me a comment on our signup post.

Today’s post is from … me!

This is my Christmas swag, my first decoration of this year’s season. I opted to wait until next weekend to put up our tree, but I wanted to feel festive.

Swags are an alternative to wreaths, and are usually a collection of branches, leaves, and berries, tied together at the stem with ribbons and other decorations and suspended from that end on your door.

Traditionally, it seems, swags are often festoons/garlands, decoratively hung curved over a door or window. I suspect, although I can find no support for this theory, that this current door decoration definition comes from a single end of that, since it resembles that end piece.

Unlike wreaths, swags are relatively easy to make, particularly if you have a real Christmas tree where you are trimming the bottom branches to fit it into the stand. Mum usually opts for this method, as do many tree farms. Or you can gather natural materials specifically for this task, which is what my great-grandparents used to do.

This year, because I wanted a door decoration before I had a tree and because I don’t have ready access to living trees I can just lop pieces off of, I opted to buy one. The garden shop where I purchased it (they were advertising 22 types of wreaths, and I had my fingers crossed) had three varieties. I liked the largest one, but it would have taken up half my apartment door and that seemed silly. So, I opted for this medium-sized one, which seems to fit the bill nicely.

Should you want to make one yourself, it’s an easy craft project and could be a fun one to do with kids or as a gift to leave for neighbors you might normally gift food to.

Here are a few tutorials, should you be interested:

Modern Door Swag Tutorial

How to Make a Christmas Swag Wreath

DIY Christmas Door Swags

Do you decorate your door(s) at the holidays? Do you use a swag or some kind of wreath or a door wrap? Let us know in the comments.

And please stop back tomorrow, where we’ll have a great post waiting for you.