Virtual Advent Tour 2020 - Where's Elvis?

Back in 2006 Kailana from The Written World and I had the idea to start a Virtual Advent Tour where we toured around the blogosphere as participants shared stories, songs, memories and more about Christmas. We continued to host up until 2013 when we handed the baton over to Sprite Writes and she has been hosting since 2014

For the longest time the Advent Tour was one of the ways I helpedget myself into a festive mood because it was a time of the year that I did struggle with, so I am super pleased to see that the tour lives on!

I thought for my advent post this year I would share something that I have been doing for a while now and that is buying Christmas ornaments when I travel. For a long time I used to buy one special ornament each year. Usually it would be a more expensive, more fragile ornament with a glittery inscription of the year on it, but a few years ago this morphed into being ornaments that we had bought from places we had visited on our travels.

This year I should have been able to share ornaments from London and Paris at the very least but our trip was cancelled and we haven't really been able to travel anywhere to buy new ornaments!  So instead, I am sharing last years with you.

In May last year  we travelled to the US, arriving in New Orleans, then we went on a Carribean cruise (where we got engaged) and then we drove from New Orleans to Nashville, and then onto Kansas City via Tuscon and a small town called Concordia where my son was playing college basketball. It was an amazing trip.

Along the way we gained several Christmas ornaments, which are going to grace our new tree. This year is actually the first year that we have put up a tree since Robert moved in. The last couple of years we haven't quite managed it because we were going on holidays so we decided not too.

So these are just some of the ornaments that will be gracing our tree this year

This is our New Orleans one, the classic fleur de lys. Only problem is that when I went to hang it on your new Christmas tree this year, I realised that the only way to hang it is upside down which didnt really work properly.

Next up - Nashville. I really enjoyed Nashville and would love to go back again at some point. Maybe not right now with the US COVID situation, but some time.

The next one comes from Graceland in Memphis. We actually bought two ornaments in Memphis. The only problem is that we have lost Elvis! Maybe I should say Elvis has left the building? Actually I am pretty sure he is still in the building but we really don't know where! And now, I am going to need to find him, no matter how much effort it take because he would look great on our tree! He's purple, with a big cape and, from memory, gold accents!


We did acutally acquire another ornament last year when one of my friends visited from New Zealand.

Here's  hoping that next year we will have some new additions to the tree from places we have visited. Maybewe will need to collect some Australian ornaments.

Thank you for visiting my post for this year's Virtual Advent Tour. Special thanks to Sprite Writes for keeping the tradition alive.