Friday, November 30, 2012

Are You Ready?

It's nearly time to start our Virtual Advent Tour for this year and I for one am very excited at the prospect of getting underway.

We are very pleased with the turnout so far, but it isn't too late to sign up. Just go to the sign up post and complete the form. If you want a specific date let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you! Don't forget to grab your favourite button to use as well!

Today I thought I would address some of the more frequently asked questions over the years.

One of the hardest things about doing this is to try and coordinate these things relates to timezones. With Kelly being in Canada and Marg in Australia, we are at opposite ends of the same date all the time.To try and make it easier for everyone concerned we have set the blog time to GMT so you can use that as your guide if you are a bit concerned about when to post.

Each day we will post that day's schedule of stops, and where possible we will link to the actual post so make sure you add us to your feed reader, or to your Twitter feed or stop by each day to see where we are visiting. You can see the schedule as it currently stands here, but please be aware that as more people join in the schedule will also change a little.


Once again this year Kelly and I will be sharing holiday related quotes here on the blog from books I have read through this year.I couldn't come up with enough for the whole tour but we will have some songs and other things thrown in as well.

We encourage people to comment on the blogs that are participating, and hopefully you will discover some new blogs to read along the way. I certainly seem to find new blogs all the time during the tour.

Most of all we hope that everyone has a fun time participating as both hosts and visitors, and Kelly and I thank you all for your continued support of the tour.

Finally, for those of you who have been participating on the tour for more than 5 years, we have a special button for you to use. Feel free to grab this. I do have a spreadsheet to help me keep track of participation but I can't access it at the moment!


Tour Schedule for Virtual Advent 2012

December 1
Tami @ Just One More Thing...
Andi @ Estella's Revenge
Katie @ Book Addict Katie

December 2
Rachel @ a fair substitute for heaven
kelley @ the road goes ever ever on
Tasha @ Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books

December 3
Ana @ things mean a lot
Michelle @ The True Book Addict
Melissa @ The Book Nut

December 4
Cindy @ Cindy's Love of Books
Pamela @ Lavish Bookshelf
Christine @ the happily ever after...

December 5
Memory @ Stella Matutina
Linda @ Hutt-Write Voice
Pogue @ Katzenjammer

December 6
Teresa @ Teresa's Reading Corner
Lisa @ Books. Lists. Life
raidergirl3 @ an adventure in reading

December 7
Belle Wong @ MsBookish
Bellezza @ Dolce Bellezza
Snowball @ Come, Sit by the Hearth

December 8
Suey @ It's All About Books
Susan @ You Can Never Have Too Many Books
Robin @ A Fondness for Reading

December 9
Darren @ Bart's Bookshelf
Susanna Kearsley @ A Woman in Jeopardy
Chris @ Stuff as Dreams are Made On

December 10
Sprite @ Sprite Writes
Random Magic Tour - The Coven

December 11
Chris @ Chrisbookarama
Melissa Darsey @ Reflection of Providence

December 12
Pepca @ Beyond Strange New Words
Melissa Wiebe @ Jayne's Books

December 13
Cat @ Beyond Elsewhere
Savvy Reader @ The Savvy Reader
Joanna @ Create Your World

December 14
Suzanne @ bibliosue
Cass @ Bonjour, Cass

December 15
Joy Weese Moll @ Joy's Book Blog
Shelleyrae @ Book'd Out

December 16
Teri @ Henningsen Happenings
Colleen @ Books in the City
Cam @ epiBloguer
Jane @ Life @ Number 8

December 17
Amy @ My Friend Amy 
Stacy @ The Novel Life 
Lauren @ The Australian Bookshelf

December 18
Leslie @ Under My Apple Tree
Trish @ Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity
Julie @ Anglers Rest

December 19
Meryl @ My Bit of Earth
Jinger @ The Intrepid Angeleno
Vicki @ I'd Rather Be Reading at the Beach

December 20
Lu @ Regular Ruminations
Alexandra @ The Sleepless Reader
John Mutford @ The Book Mine Set

December 21
Sassymonkey @ Sassymonkey Reads
Julie @ Anglers Rest
Julia @ A Piece of My Mind

December 22
Hannah @ Word Lily
Deb Nance @ Readerbuzz
Heather @ Capricious Reader

December 23
Emma @ Girl Loves Books
Carol @ Better is Possible
Kaetrin @ Kaetrin's Musings

December 24
Kailana @ The Written World
Carl @ Stainless Steel Droppings
Lauren @ The Australian Bookshelf
Cynthia White @ The Things You Can Read

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Announcing the 2012 Virtual Advent Tour

Merry Christmas!
Kailana from The Written World and Marg from Adventures of an Intrepid Reader are very pleased and excited to announce that we will once again be running the Virtual Advent tour this year. This is the seventh year that we have hosted and we hope that the event has become an integral part of the book blogging community's holiday traditions.

The Virtual Advent tour first started when we pondered why should the kids get all the fun of opening a box on the advent calendar and finding a treat in there, and how could we have some blogging fun with a similar concept? So the Virtual Advent tour was born.

Each day anyone who wants to participate takes turns sharing a treat with our friends here in blogland. For example it could be something about your family traditions, recipes, your country's holiday traditions, or a favourite Christmas memory, movie, book, song...anything you like. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas we would like to hear about what your family does during the holiday season, whether it be celebrating Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever it is that you do during this time.

If you are interested in signing up, then please sign up using the Google form (link below). If you want a specific date, then please include that along with your name and other details. If you don't need a specific date, then we will allocate a date to you. We will create a list of links so that as people express interest we will add them to the list, and then each day during the tour we will post a link directing visitors to the appropriate blog.

The tour will start on Saturday 1 December and run through until Monday December 24. If there are more people than there are days that's fine too.....the more the merrier! It just means that there will be more than one blog to visit on those days.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Alex for our gorgeous blog design!

And don't worry, we haven't forgotten the buttons for you to adorn your posts. They will be here shortly, so watch this space!

We look forward to visiting everyone on the tour.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

2012 Buttons

Special thanks to Alex for again coming up with these awesome buttons for this year's tour!