As you may remember, for the past eight years I’ve hosted the Virtual Advent Tour, which I took over from its original hosts, Marg and Kailana, who ran it for five.

I will not lie. For the last two years, participation has been way down and has depended heavily on a small handful of us, including Rudi and my best friend, Karen, (as well as guest posts from my parents) all of whom do it only to take some of the weight off of me. After last year, I was relatively certain that I was done. Even up until Thanksgiving, I thought it was just too much for this year.

But I still think there’s a place for a small moment of holiday respite before we start our respective days. A time for us to take a collective breath in and out and to remember what we love about this time of the year, before we make ourselves crazy trying to perform what we think needs to be done.

And that goes for me, too. So that means I’m going to host a Virtual Advent Tour this year. But it’s going to be small. I’m going to post a song. Maybe some days I’ll share other things as the mood and time allow. But I’m not going to expect more of myself than that.

If you want to take a day or two of the Tour to write something or share a photo or a song, I’m happy to have you along for the ride. Just leave me a note in the comments telling me what day you’d like to do that and I’ll send people your way. I’ll update this post just with the dates other people are claiming (for my own sake), but I’m not going to put up the whole month’s worth of dates. We’ll just assume that any date that’s not listed is mine.

December 8: Rudi
Dec. 13: Rudi
Dec. 19: Rudi

Let’s see if I can find the joy of this tradition that made me revive it in the first place.

Without further narrative, I present Lucille Ball’s 1974 rendition of “We Need a Little Christmas” from the movie version of Mame:

Without a doubt, Angela Lansbury, who originated and won a Tony for the titular musical role, is a better singer, so if you’d like to hear her Broadway version, I point you here.

See you back here tomorrow!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. After two months staying with my folks, I’m home. Corey is elated to see me.

2. Five of us go out after the volleyball game. It’s good to catch up on people’s lives over drinks and food.

3. Sarah and Susan make time to have lunch with me. They are kind in letting me talk pretty much non-stop.

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

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you had a nice holiday if you celebrate and a solid Thursday regardless. Here are three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi made his way north, so I got to see him for the first time in over six weeks.

2. The chemo part of Mum’s treatment wrapped up on Tuesday. And she’s down to just five more radiation treatments.

3. My college roomie skipped the holiday activities we’d planned to do before Mum needed to take stricter precautions. Instead, we stayed outside most of the day and did a little Christmas shopping and ate a tremendous Lebanese supper. And she sent me home with a care package for Mum and me.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My BFF tells me, “You know I can always come to you if you need me to, right? Or if you aren’t there, and you need me to get there, I can.” I can’t explain to you the kindness and the love of this offer.

2. The sunset looks like a dud, but I just needed to wait past the blah moment.

3. After putting the yard to bed for the winter, I am rewarded with fancy hot chocolate by my mom.

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

Time and days don’t really exist up here, other than in the form of making doctors’ appointments, which means I have a hard time holding onto Thursdays…

Here are three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The hospital releases my dad after five days this time and lets him do his final treatment as an outpatient, sitting next to my mom for her weekly chemo infusion.

2. Rudi overnights me a package, which includes leftover Halloween candy, more cold-weather clothing (fall in New England means something different than in D.C.), and my new phone, which I’d had sent home instead of to Connecticut. (The battery doesn’t die when you blink! The flashlight works! I can talk to people for an hour and not have to be tethered to a charging cable!)

3. When I went to Northampton the weekend before Halloween, I picked up a bunch of books, including Bishop Takes King, a Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) novel by Ashley Poston. The Hawkeye novel was perfect for the hospital, and rewatching the first episode of her Disney+ series was perfect for the few hours a day I had to myself.

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

I started this post Thursday and then life happened…

Three beautiful things from last week:

1. I sent up the bat signal to the volleyball team and they replied with pictures, jokes, recipes, and words of encouragement.

2. The view from Dad’s hospital room looks to the hills outside Hartford and is quite restful.

3. My visit to the bowling alley was curtailed by a family emergency, but before I headed out, they played a novelty song from my volleyball team playlist, which made me feel calmer and more capable.

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