24 Days to Christmas!

I love Christmas and Christmas traditions! This is the 12th year I've done an advent calendar type countdown here on Rose City Reader. Every year, starting December 1, I post a picture of a Christmas themed vintage card. Every day until Christmas, I post a different picture.

WHAT'S THE STORY?

I started this advent tradition in 2008, the first year I started this blog, which seems a really long time ago, especially in blog years. I didn't have a particular reason to start it, or to keep it up. The blog is about books, not vintage cards, after all. But I enjoy it. I like decorating my house for Christmas and there aren't many ways to decorate a blog for Christmas. Posting a Christmas picture to count down the days until Christmas is the thing I like to do.

IS THERE A THEME?

Some years I have a theme in mind when I pick the cards, some years it is a slapdash affair. Sort of like Christmas in real life, right? One year, it was all older, more Victorian looking cards, for example, one year it was all Santa cards. This year I'm going with all Christmas cats and kittens. Why? Because I'm in a cat and kitten mood. Some fluffy feline comfort sounds nice during this hectic time of year.

If you're into tiny details, whatever the theme for the year, I try to remember to post a card with Santa in it on Christmas Eve and a nativity scene picture on Christmas day. I try to find Santa and nativity cards that go with the theme. This year I found several Santa with cat cards to choose from. But I couldn't find a nativity scene with a cat.

OTHER HOLIDAY BOOKISHNESS?

What bookish things do you do this time of year, on your blog or otherwise?

Besides this advent calendar, I don't do much holiday stuff here at Rose City Reader. No holiday gift guides or Christmas book read-a-longs. Now that I'm on Instagram, I post some holiday-ish book pictures, like this one of books with #festivetitles:

This is also the time of year to wrap up 2019 book challenges and plan for 2020 book challenges. That means I need to post the 2020 European Reading Challenge, which I will do soon. In the meantime, the 2019 European Reading Challenge doesn't finish until the end of January 2020, so there is still time to finish, post reviews on this page and wrap up posts on this page.