Greetings and welcome to December 1, our first day of the 2022 edition of the Virtual Advent Tour.

Growing up, we had several decorations that got hung on our walls each year.

First, on the back of the front door was a gigantic card that I think my uncle (apologies, Mum and Dad, if I’m misremembering and one of you made it) drew for my parents the Christmas they lived in Oregon.

Second, in the hallway were a series of cardboard elf stands (huts, cottages?) from the North Pole.

And finally, on the wall of Josh’s and my bedroom, was a cardboard cutout of Santa with his sleigh and his reindeer, each pair of which was separated by a yarn ribbon. If I remember correctly, some portion of Santa was slightly fuzzy — maybe the fur of his hat?

Somewhere along the line, I believe all of these decorations were lost. But they remain in my memory.

Nowadays, we hang fairy lights around the perimeter of the living room before we get the tree. That will be one of today’s tasks, so we can get our tree before Sunday afternoon.

And this print, a gift a few years back from my best friend, Karen, will go up on the wall:

It’s a print by the late Carol Spinney, who played Big Bird and Oscar on Sesame Street. He lived in a town near where Karen and I get together when I’m up north, and the toyshop sold prints of his each Christmas. I admired them when we were shopping together and she and her family came back the next weekend to buy it for me.

See you back here tomorrow!

Join us! We are still looking for hosts for many of the days of the Virtual Advent Tour. You don’t have to write anything fancy (see above), and it can focus on any aspect of a winter holiday and your celebration of it. Thank you to everyone who has already volunteered to write posts. I’ve given you the dates you’ve asked for and will circle back to those who volunteered to write additional posts in the next couple days to find dates that work for you.

Welcome to signups for this year’s Virtual Advent Tour. 2022 marks my eighth year as host of this annual event.

A traditional Advent calendar is usually a paper device designed to give kids a way to productively channel their holiday energy by counting down from December 1st until Christmas. Each day, you open a door to find a hidden scene, piece of chocolate, or some other treat. The Virtual Advent Tour is a bloggers’ take on that. In our version, each morning I 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 holiday post or two in December? You don’t have to declare your topic beforehand, and your post can be as simple or as complex and in any format.

If you’re looking for inspiration, folks have shared new traditions they’ve adopted, old traditions they keep alive, favorite holiday music, charities, recipes, books, events, memories, and more.

If this sounds like your type of fun, leave me a comment below noting what day(s) you’d like. I’ll update this post as people claim days.

A few annual housekeeping notes:

While both the tradition of the Advent calendar and the timing skew Christian, the tour is inclusive and open to anyone who celebrates December holidays of any sort. We love reading about all kinds of celebrations and the traditions you’ve developed around them!

I tend to write my posts shortly after midnight my time (Eastern U.S.) and will schedule them to go live at 6 a.m. If your post is live when I’m writing, I’ll give a little preview and link directly to it. However, if it’s not, no worries. I’ll assume you’ll get it live at some point, and will just embed a song and a link to your blog’s homepage.

Feel free to download and use the 2022 Virtual Advent Tour badge. If you want to share on social media, I use the hashtag #VirtualAdventTour on Twitter.

Thanks in advance for making this one of my fun December traditions! (more…)

How the day began:

Potomac Phil predicted six more weeks of winter and six more months of political gridlock. Neither is surprising, since the spring solstice doesn’t show up for another six weeks and no one gets along anymore anyway.

How the day ended:

Hot chocolate bombs in front of the Christmas tree before undecorating it and putting the ornaments away. (I haven’t actually done that last step since 2019, so getting everything boxed up felt pretty good.)

Remember how I pulled out all my Christmas cards to send them off in mid-December?

Never happened.

Then I took them with me to Connecticut to get them out before Christmas — or, at the very least, before I came back to D.C.

Fail!

Did I at least get them out by the end of 2021?

Nope!

Am I giving up on the idea of sending physical cards this season?

No, I am not!

But I am running out of the twelve days of Christmas, so I’d better buckle down and get them out in the next couple days…

For the past few years, I’ve taken part in The Broke and the Bookish Secret Santa (#TBTBSanta for shorthand), now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This year, my package came early and I put it aside as incentive to get through the hard days that were coming in December. Just before heading north, I opened it up:

Very exciting so far! We have a sparkly unicorn, stickers, fun socks, and two types of tea! Plus a bunch of packages to unwrap! And at least one of them will be a book!

Two of the packages were books — and one of those contained a trio of reads! That’s Casey McQuiston’s second novel, One Last Stop, and the first three novels in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series about what the Napoleonic Wars might have been like had there been a squadron of dragons involved. I’ve adored books by both these authors, so I’m so excited to read these in the new year! There’s also some stationery, more candy (mmm! Reese’s!), and a trio of eos lip balms.

Thank you, Bookish Momma! I love it all!

Category: books,christmas/holiday season. There is/are Comments Off on #tbtbsanta 2021.

Hoping you and your loved ones had a very merry Christmas and wishing you all a happy Boxing Day, as well! Have a bowl of trifle!