{"id":7604,"date":"2017-12-25T05:30:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-25T10:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=7604"},"modified":"2017-12-25T04:03:05","modified_gmt":"2017-12-25T09:03:05","slug":"virtual-advent-tour-merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=7604","title":{"rendered":"virtual advent tour: merry christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/virtual-advent-tour-400.jpg\" alt=\"virtual advent tour\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Technically, Advent concludes on the 24th of December because, as Bridget and others have pointed out, Advent is about the waiting and the anticipation. By the 25th, Christ and Christmas have arrived, so there&#8217;s no need to wait any longer. However, some Advent calendars include a door for the 25th, so I&#8217;m going to cheat and have one, too, albeit with only a brief post.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J2dmWwEoZIQ?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Christmas has arrived. In Connecticut, where I&#8217;m spending the holiday, snow fell overnight, so we&#8217;ll be having a white Christmas. It&#8217;ll just be my folks, Rudi, and me this year, so I suspect the day will move slowly and casually with lots of food, music, and movies interspersed with calls and texts from loved ones far away.<\/p>\n<p>Not everything on my to-do list got crossed off, but enough has. We&#8217;ve made spritz cookies (Mum made the dough and the cookies, and Dad and I decorated) and trifle, which involved a lot of laughter on my part, as various parts of it fell apart. Mum (with the help of Rudi&#8217;s unflagging whipping arm) made homemade egg nog, which we drank last night &#8212; two ginormous, rich glasses apiece. We ran out of time for gingerbread, so that&#8217;ll be put off for a day or two.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xujMdReCfgE?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in the Virtual Advent Tour, from those who read posts quietly, to those who left comments, we were grateful for your companionship on this tour. A most sincere thank you to those who wrote one or more posts during the Virtual Advent Tour &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/wyomingbreezes.blogspot.com\/\">Nancy<\/a> (who stepped up to write a third post for me when I was feeling overwhelmed), <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondstrangenewwords.blogspot.si\/\">Jo Kay<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/compassionknit.wordpress.com\/\">kathy b<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/raidergirl3-anadventureinreading.blogspot.com\/\">radiergirl3<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/the-ravelld-sleave.blogspot.com\/\">Bridget<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/randomduck.com\">Rudi<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.askatknits.com\/\">Kat<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/lovelyyarnescapes.blogspot.com\/\">Elise<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thecozypages.wordpress.com\/\">Nina<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/mycozybooknook.blogspot.com\/\">Molly Totoro<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.craftaliciousme.com\/\">Tobia<\/a>. There would be no tour without your participation, and I&#8217;m grateful you were willing to take the time to share such personal, thoughtful reflections on your holidays. It has made December a real joy to visit your blogs and find out how your season was going. I hope you&#8217;ll all be back next year.<\/p>\n<p>And in the meantime, Happy Christmas from my family to yours. May your days be merry and bright and full of light and joy and peace. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Technically, Advent concludes on the 24th of December because, as Bridget and others have pointed out, Advent is about the waiting and the anticipation. By the 25th, Christ and Christmas have arrived, so there&#8217;s no need to wait any longer. However, some Advent calendars include a door for the 25th, so I&#8217;m going to cheat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmasholiday-season"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>virtual advent tour: merry christmas - sprite writes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=7604\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"virtual advent tour: merry christmas - sprite writes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Technically, Advent concludes on the 24th of December because, as Bridget and others have pointed out, Advent is about the waiting and the anticipation. 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