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!