Merry Christmas and happy holidays, friends! I wanted to pop in and share our Christmas card before the big day passes us by. As always, we chose a design from Minted, though this is the first year in 9 years (!) that they were not a gift! The PR gal I’ve always worked with has moved on, and I didn’t have it in me to complete the rigamarole (posting, custom codes, stories, reels!) they ask influencers to do these days :) Regardless, I never considered a card from another option – the quality is beautiful and the designs are perfect. Here’s what we chose this year! I’ll confess that I felt a bit scattered when sending our card to print, and didn’t include the names and ages of our children, the year, a piece of scripture, or a few additional photos on the back as I usually do – yeesh. Of course, names and ages are on our accompanying newsletter, but I like to have them on the card, too, in case they get separated in posterity. This year, we opted to use the photo we snapped on Easter in our backyard in lieu of a photo session. It was an expensive year (ahem, kitchen, I’m looking at you), and it just seemed to make sense to go with a beautiful photo we already had! And then, of course, we tucked a copy of our 2022 newsletter into each envelope: I am seriously considering moving to an old-school narrative newsletter on folded, white 8.5×11 printer paper next year. Thoughts?! Would you find it weird if you got one in the mail? These types of missives used to be ubiquitous in the cards my family received growing up, and I loved reading them. And I’d be following in a proud family

I wanted to share a tiny little living room update we accomplished last weekend: we finally got around to framing and hanging two pieces of art! The top piece is a painting of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a gift from one of John’s sisters. The bottom was also free to us – it’s the letterpress Christmas card our friend Meredith sent us! I thought it was too cute to throw away. If you love it, too, you can pick up a card in Sarah Parrott’s shop!