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:
Welcome to signups for this year’s Virtual Advent Tour. 2020 marks my sixth year as host of this annual event.
2020 has been a hard year for everyone, and the current world scenario doesn’t suggest the upcoming holidays are going to be any easier. We’re all thinking about how to celebrate differently at a time when tradition is particularly dear. But there are some annual events that can continue unabated, and this is one of them! Our celebration has been virtual since Zoom was the sound you made trying out your new sled Christmas afternoon! (Depending on when you last went sledding, of course!)
As you likely know, the typical Advent calendar is a season-marking device, often paper, but sometimes crafted of other materials, to count down from December 1st until Christmas. Each day, you open a door to unveil a hidden scene or piece of chocolate or some other delight. The Virtual Advent Tour is a bloggers’ take on that. 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.
Would you be willing to share a winter (or summer, if you’re south of the equator) holiday post or two next month? You’d know the date(s) ahead of time (and can request a specific one if you’d like) and there’s no need to tell me what you’re going to write about in advance. Your post can be as simple or as complex and in whatever format suits you — text, video, or audio are all good.
If you’re looking for inspiration, folks have shared favorite holiday music, ways they’ve adapted to being away from family, charities, recipes, religious calendar dates, books, local events, memories, traditions both old and new, and more. And if you’re worried about repeating something you’ve said in an earlier past, well, that can be part of the fun, too. While some people get a new Advent calendar each year, my family has always reused ours.
If this 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.
Because I was sick and working too much just before the holidays, I didn’t get as much of a chance to check out the neighborhood’s Christmas displays as I would have liked. Today I went on a bit of a walkabout and got to see one of the local restaurant’s tree theme for the year:
Last year, Floriana had a Nancy Pelosi-themed tree, but this year they opted to celebrate Sesame Street‘s 50th birthday.
I hope those who celebrate had a lovely Christmas today. We certainly did, filled with togetherness, gifts, delicious food, and lots of laughter and reminiscing.
And tomorrow, Boxing Day, there will be more of the same, with a visit with a friend taking center stage for me.
I wish you relaxation if you need it, in whatever form you can get it.
Season’s greetings on this fine Christmas Eve. We have reached our final day of this year’s Virtual Advent Tour together and relatively unscathed.
Our final host this year is Alissa at headknits. She has a post (and a great poem!) about Christmas Eve in her Ohio neighborhood.
Let me take this opportunity to thank all of our Virtual Advent Tour hosts — raidergirl3, Bridget, kathy b, Jo Kay, Rudi, Karen, DOD, Constance, and Alissa. I love the breadth of everyone’s posts, and, frankly, I wouldn’t be able to run this event without your help.
Thank you. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! And god bless us, every one.
