This year I really tried to scale back our Christmas decorations. With a baby-on-the-way, I've tried to streamline the put-out/put-up process to make it a little easier on this growing bump.

Instead of decorating AND putting out our Christmas collections, I decided this year, I would just decorate WITH our collections.

Both Jacobs and I have long-standing family traditions of ornament collections. When we married, we started a new family collection of these beautiful Vaillancourt Chalkware Santa's (locally sold at The Heirloom Shop) that I just adore. These folk art santa's are hand painted in Sutton, MA and created from antique German chocolate molds.

They have such incredible personality and intricate detail that I really wanted them to take center stage. I created a winter forrest down the center of our dinning room table and used the santa's as the centerpiece.

I got these great light-up trees from Target, added a little snow and cut out a bunch of woodland animals to make it look like the Santa's are trekking through the woods. Love!

Also, in the dinning room, we ended up doing a small Noble Fir. Usually we get a HUGE Fraser Fir, but I was trilled when Jacobs brought home a smaller (more manageable) real tree.

I decorated it in all silver and mercury glass ornaments with rustic undertones. I propped a vintage Canadian sled behind the tree that I got from City Farmhouse a couple of years ago. I'm going to use it to display all the Christmas cards we get in the mail.

I used a pair of vintage ice skates as a tree topper—so fun to think outside the box when decorating your tree.

Over the years, my grandmother has given the members of our family silver ornaments as Christmas gifts. I get a Reed & Barton silver cross every year and adore them. This year they really got to shine on a smaller tree all their own.

Jacobs collects Christopher Radko ornaments that always dawn our large den tree. It's so fun to talk about the memories of getting each one as we unwrap them every year. This year we excitedly added a stork for our little one on-the-way.

Christmas is such an incredible time to celebrate family traditions. Adorning your home with decorative collections reinforces lasting memories and makes it an extra-special time of year.

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