Wishing you ALL the joy and peace of our Lord, today, tomorrow, and every day. Merry, merry Christmas!!

P.S. I will be enjoying time with family and friends next week, so I will see you in the new year! So much goodness in store!

Photo c/o Joni Niemela

To end our little Em for Marvelous Christmas series, I thought I’d share a snippet of our apartment decor! We don’t have a ton of space to work with, so I try to keep things minimal and small-scale — but still colorful :)

Here’s our baby tree. The “skirt” is actually an extra pashmina!

Colorful balls in a berry basket on the coffee table

These are foot-high kraft letters I bought from JoAnn Fabrics a few years ago and painted red.

Every Christmas I realize how few available flat spaces we have in our apartment, which is why our poor nativity is clustered around the TV. I collect the Willow Tree version. It’s kind of expensive, so I just started with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and then have added a piece every year. This year it was the stars!

I hope you enjoyed the tour! I’m happy to say that I almost feel ready to do a more extensive tour of our apartment, so look for that (kind of) soon!

I think our Christmas cards should have all made their way safely to their recipients by now, so it’s safe to share the 2011 design! :) This year, I was inspired by, of all things, the USPS’s holiday stamp series.

I know, I know — the postal system is not exactly known for its excellent design sense, but in this case, the stamps provided a jumping off point, and that’s all I needed.

What do you think?

P.S. Last year’s Christmas cards. I still love these ones! And here are our cards from 2009.

My gifts are all purchased (yes!), so now it’s on to wrapping! Making pretty packages is possibly my favorite part of the gift-giving experience, so I try to make sure I have plenty of time to spend on each one. Here are a few of my completed presents this year:

In general, I like to pair plain wrapping paper (kraft is great!) with wide satin, velvet, or patterned ribbon. I also picked up two sheets of glitter scrapbook paper at Michael’s a few weeks back, and it’s been great for making tags this year!