I'm usually the Queen of last-minute Christmas prep, but because we had a little holiday party for over the weekend, I had no choice but to break out the decor out even before the calendar flipped to December. Mark and I put our tree up last weekend, and I spent the spare hours of the week arranging and hanging and stringing and bow-making. I went with a color palate of sparkly gold with pops of red to go with my overall "Classy Christmas" scheme. Yes, I put a lot of unnecessary thought into this.

I'm happy with the way everything turned out and am kicking myself for not taking any pictures of our spread and party set-up. Even though our apartment is pretty cozy (AKA, small!), it lends itself to small gatherings and we somehow managed to feed (and seat) 16 people.

Here are some shots of our festive home. The table and bar looked much prettier at the party; they're a little barebones sans tablecloth and servewear.