Today marks the first day you get content from someone besides me with the beginning of the actual tour portion of the Virtual Advent Tour. Visit Molly at Revising Life after 50 today for her family’s recipe for making gingerbread houses. (Now is where I confess that I’ve never made a gingerbread house and SO want to. Thanks, Molly!)

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy it when artists take a song, particularly one we all know, and rework it to make it their own.

Earlier this week, No Sleep Records released their latest holiday album, No Sleep ’till Christmas 7. The final track off the EP, performed by Rocky Votolato, is “Silent Night,” and really quite a nice version. Give it a listen yourself:

You can stream all five songs here and can download the full EP for whatever price you deem it worth.

Every Thursday I share beautiful things from the previous week. These are just three of this week’s:

1. I run into Panera, a fast-food bakery/restaurant, for a bagel for a late lunch. The guy at the counter throws a second bagel into the bag and asks me to grab a free cup of coffee or tea as his treat.

2. A seven-and-a-half hour commute home on a holiday weekend. (For comparison, our fastest ever drive from Connecticut to D.C. was six-and-a-half hours, which we managed just once in the past 12 years. Normally it’s eight’ish.)

3. After days of grey and rain, this morning I awoke to sunshine and brilliant blue skies.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?