Welcome to day seven of this year’s Virtual Advent Tour!

We’ve made it a full week, friends, and I hope that your holiday celebrations continue apace. My tree is up and mostly decorated and I’ve started my shopping, which will continue this week. Tonight, I had a huge hankering for my grandmother’s cranberry bread, which she always made this time of year (and the recipe for which I shared during last year’s tour), so I suspect that will be on this weekend’s agenda.

Today’s host is Judith of Reader in the Wilderness, one of our first-time participants this year. She has a great post on her favorite Christmas reads of the past five years, which recalls the Virtual Advent Tour’s origins in the lit-blogging community. Please stop by her post and make her feel welcome!

I’ll see you back here tomorrow for our next calendar door!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. St. Nicholas stopped by last night, and we must have been pretty good this year because he left behind candy and a Harry Potter ornament for me and candy and some kitchen knives for Rudi.

2. I mailed my first Christmas card this week, which only bodes well for the rest of them, just as soon as I figure out where the stamps disappeared to during the great Christmas party cleanup.

3. Speaking of which, Rudi found my Mets cap, which was missing for the entirety of the 2018 season. I blame its absence for their performance, because in order to be a true baseball fan for the team that’s home to the Cy Young winner you have to believe it’s your headwear choices, rather than their playing, right?

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