Welcome back to the Virtual Advent Tour. We’ve reached Day 9, which means we’re more than a third of the way through the season!

Today, I’m sending you off to Beyond Strange New Words, where Jo Kay has a post for us about winter evenings. I’m nearly positive that Jo Kay is our only Tour participant this year writing from somewhere that’s not North America.

I hope you have a great Monday (there are only four more this year!), and I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow.

(And to those of you who sent well-wishes for the party, thank you. I neither pretended to be out when our first guests arrived, nor burst into tears during the frenzied pre-party period, and the 30 people who crammed into our apartment seemed to enjoy themselves. Plus, I now have a nicely clean bathroom — although I did forget to put the soap back into the soap dish after I cleaned it, and no one mentioned it, so I didn’t discover that until the final guests had departed. Oh well…)

Behind door #8 on this year’s Virtual Advent Tour is a familiar shape. What’s this? I am totally recycling (and scheduling ahead) a post I’ve used in previous years. Why, you might ask?

When I decided to revive the Virtual Advent Tour, raidergirl3 told me to repeat content as needed to not feel burnt out. Today requires that advice.

My tree-trimming party is due to start in 10 hours and I am expecting to squeeze 30 people into my junior one-bedroom apartment. I am exhausted, but am not remotely ready. So, here we are.

How to throw a Christmas party:

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Welcome back to the Virtual Advent Tour! Today is the end of our first week, so I hope the season has been going well for you so far.

We are big music listeners in my family, and our tastes are broad, particularly at the holidays. My dad’s Christmas music collection numbers in the hundreds, and mine is catching up, having overflowed the milk crate I keep it in a few years back. In fact, while in New York last month, I bought a new Christmas cd based on nothing more than the fact that it was one.

As kids, we listened to vinyl and the mix tapes Dad made, and our favorites included his holiday recordings, which later moved to cd as the media changed.

For many years now, I’ve also made an annual Christmas cd. In fact, I wrote about my process for one of my very first Virtual Advent Tours, and I have shared songs off my cds on occasion over the years.

This year, I’ve been auditioning music intermittently since mid-November, but listened to quite a few tunes while working late earlier this week. While I may share some of the new songs I’m considering later in the tour, today I thought I’d give you a trio of the songs that made it onto last year’s cd.

First up we have The Sugarpills performing “Christmas Is the Time to Say I Love You,” originally written and recorded by Billy Squier. Their pared down version of the song gives it an earnestness I like:

Second, we have “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” performed by Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson and featuring Sean Ono Lennon on the song his parents wrote:

Finally, we have Leilani and the Distractions with their klezmer adaptation of Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I’m a sucker for reworkings and mashups of well-known songs, so my mixes often include at least one:

Today, we’ll be cleaning our apartment in preparation for our tree-trimming party on Sunday, and I’m looking forward to finally getting a chance to listen to Dad’s 2019 Christmas mix while I do it. I hope your Saturday also includes some musical highlights, however you prefer them.

I’ll see you back here tomorrow. Oh, and if you’d like to join in on the fun of the Virtual Advent Tour, leave me a comment and we can set you up with a date. We still have openings throughout the rest of Advent.

Welcome to Day 6 of the Virtual Advent Tour. Happy St. Nicholas Day! I hope he filled your shoes with treats!

Behind today’s calendar door we have a treat from raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading. She has a post for you about the fun ways she and her family are adding a little pizzazz to their holidays.

Thanks for stopping by and do come back tomorrow. If you’re interested in doing a post as part of Virtual Advent Tour, just leave me a note in the comments and I’ll get you set up. We still have some unclaimed dates available.

Welcome back for Day 5 of the Virtual Advent Tour!

I thought today I’d share a recipe for cookies you could make at Christmas or at any time of the year, really. They make a tasty snack while writing Christmas cards, a quick dessert to take to a party, or an informal gift for the officemate who waters your plants while you’re on vacation.

I grew up with these cookies in regular rotation with chocolate chip, but after bringing them to an office potluck earlier this year, it occurs to me that they may not be as common as I’d always believed.

Oatmeal Scotchies

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla

3 cups oats (I use old-fashioned; my friend Sarah opts for quick. DO NOT use instant.)

1 2/3 cups butterscotch chips (or whatever constitutes 1 11-12-ounce package)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. (When I am in a hurry, I just make this all in a single bowl and add these individually after the next step. It comes out fine either way.)
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.
4. Beat in flour mixture gradually.
5. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips.
6. Drop onto an ungreased baking sheet by the rounded tablespoon. (Do people actually measure their cookie dough this way? I do not. I either use a regular spoon or the small scooper my mother gave me for this purpose.)
7. Bake for 7-8 minutes for chewy cookies or 9-10 for crispier ones. (I tend toward the 9-minute mark, personally, but your mileage — and oven — may vary.)
8. Let rest for a couple minutes on the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way — or to your mouth to eat hot. (I often try to skip the resting step because space is at a premium in my kitchen, but it really is necessary if you don’t want your cookies to fall apart as you’re shifting them.)

The recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies.

See you back here tomorrow, when we’ll have a new author!

Welcome to the fourth day of the Virtual Advent Tour!

Every year my best friend, Karen, and I get together the weekend after Thanksgiving to catch up and do a little Christmas shopping in Putnam, Connecticut, which is roughly halfway between her house and my parents’.

For the past three years, the town has gone all in on being a destination for holiday merriment, adding many events to promote their Main Street businesses. One of which is their Gingerbread Trail, where businesses vie to create the most impressive gingerbread structure.

These range from traditional North Pole villages to Victorian mansions.

Some make good use of confections, such as this house’s marshmallow snow:

While others depict whimsical scenes, such as Santa and Mrs. Claus relaxing in their hot tub:

Then there are the more eclectic entries:

And those that skirt the traditional definition of gingerbread house by using a more mixed-media, but visually arresting, approach:

There can be casualties:

But in the end, with a lot of elbow grease — and even more sugar — beautiful things can be made.

Putnam always puts on a good show, and Karen and I enjoyed wandering the Gingerbread Trail once again this year.

Thanks for letting me share it with you.

Would you like to share some of your holiday festivities as part of the Virtual Advent Tour? Drop me a note in the comments, and I’ll get you signed up.