Welcome to signups for this year’s Virtual Advent Tour. 2021 marks my seventh year as host of this annual event.

2020 was hard. I mean really hard. And I say that having been extraordinarily lucky. But I think all of us expected this year to be easier. And it … was. But, also, it wasn’t.

And yet, here we are again, less than a month away from Christmas and just over a month until year’s end. Some of us are celebrating with loved ones we couldn’t see last year. Some of us are trying to find ways to navigate through the holidays with holes in our closest circles — and in our hearts. And some built new traditions out of necessity last year and are sticking with them.

However you observe the holidays this year, I’d love for you to share your celebrations with us as part of this year’s Virtual Advent Tour.

As you likely know, a typical Advent calendar is usually a paper-based, time-marking device designed to count down from December 1st until Christmas. Each day, you open a door to unveil a treat of some kind — a hidden scene, piece of chocolate, or some other delight. The Virtual Advent Tour is a bloggers’ take on that. In our version, each morning I’ll point you to a post at someone’s blog in which they share something about their holiday season.

Would you be willing to share a holiday post or two in December? You’d know the date(s) ahead of time (and can request a specific one if you’d like). And you don’t have to decide ahead of time what you want to write about. Your post can be as simple or as complex and in text, video, or audio format.

If you’re looking for inspiration, folks have shared new traditions they’ve adopted, old traditions they keep alive, favorite holiday music, charities, recipes, books, events, memories, and more.

If this sounds fun and you’d like to participate, please leave me a comment on this post telling me what date(s) you’d like. I’ll update this post as people claim days.

A few annual housekeeping notes:

While both the tradition of the Advent calendar and the timing skew Christian, the tour is inclusive and open to anyone who celebrates December holidays of any sort. We love reading about all kinds of celebrations and the traditions you’ve developed around them!

I tend to write my posts shortly after midnight my time (Eastern U.S.) and will schedule them to go live at 6 a.m. If your post is live when I’m writing, I’ll give a little preview and link directly to it. However, if it’s not, no worries. I’ll assume you’ll get it live at some point, and will just embed a song and a link to your blog’s homepage.

I made 2021 Virtual Advent Tour badges in 600px and 400px that you’re welcome to download and use.

If you want to share on social media, I use the hashtag #VirtualAdventTour on Twitter.

Thanks in advance for making this one of my fun December traditions!

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20: Karen
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