Happy first Friday of Advent! I hope you have some seasonal beverages lined up to mark the end of the week. And Wikipedia informs me that today is National Cookie Day in the U.S., so I invite everyone to help us celebrate that important holiday! Do your part!

Once you have your cookie (what, some of them can be healthy breakfast foods!), check behind door number four and find a deep dive into the history of the Advent calendar from Rudi at Random Duck. Thanks, hon!

We’ll see you back here bright and early on Saturday!

I’m not going to lie. These last couple weeks have been hard. But they were made easier than they could have been. Here are three beautiful things from my past week that helped:

1. A video chat with my very most important people from college.

2. The first Christmas cards of the season.

3. Tomato soup made only from tomatoes from my garden. (To be honest, it was a little more like sauce than soup. Do you think I can just thin it out with water when I reheat it?)

What’s been beautiful in your world lately?