*This post was sponsored by AllModern. All opinions are my own.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the holidays are going to look a bit different this year. If I’m being honest, I was feeling pretty down about it for weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, and as we head toward Christmas, but then I had a little pep talk with myself. Instead of thinking about all the little things I won’t get to experience this holiday season, I’m trying to remind myself to look forward to some freshness and a few new things we can try to make the holidays feel extra special.

One of the main differences this year, of course, is that our celebrations are on the smaller side. We’ve never had major family gatherings (it’s almost always just our immediate families), but this year has sort of taught us that simple is best, and that big elaborate, showy celebrations aren’t necessary—especially since budgets are tighter, and getting safely to the store for new holiday décor and fancy food is harder. Instead, we’ve scaled things way back, and it has been so refreshing. It’s actually not depressing at all!

This season has given us the chance to take a long hard look at a lot of things in our life (big and small), but one thing we recently realized is that we don’t really need the giant 8-foot dining room table that has been dominating our dining room for the past five years. It’s almost always just John and me eating there, and all that excess wasted space felt silly.

So, with a little help from AllModern, I spent time rethinking our entire dining room to make it feel a little less cavernous, and a lot more casual, specifically keeping in mind the smaller-scale, more intimate style of celebrating we’ll be doing this year.

The first thing to go was our giant table. In its place I went with a leggy wood round table that gives us better flow, and also allows us to take better advantage of the square footage of the dining room itself. We have so much more room now to walk around the table, and the round shape is actually bigger than I expected. We hardly lost any dining surface area at all!

To ground the new round dining table, I needed to swap out our rectangular rug. I think rectangular rugs do work under round tables, but my vision was for something a little more symmetrical, so round it was. You might laugh, but I loved our old rectangular dining room rug so much, that I actually ordered the same exact one—just in a round shape. It’s really plush and soft, and I think the rich red and black pattern goes so well with our moody blue/green feature wall.

Speaking of the feature wall, I wanted to make that even more of a focal point for any small scale get-togethers we might have with my parents this holiday season. So, I ordered a gold-framed abstract canvas to hang front and center on the dark-painted wall. I love how the vines from my potted plants sitting on the ledge above sort of help frame the art even more, and it picks up those fantastic colors in the rug, too.

Have you thought about doing any major furniture swaps in your house to better suit your shifting routines this year? Or have you considered actually downsizing your furniture in spaces that have started to feel kinda cramped? If you love change and experimenting as much as I do, now could be the perfect time to get critical and creative where your furniture is concerned.

Let me know in the comments what you think about our decision to go smaller with our dining room furniture, and feel free to keep scrolling for a list of linked AllModern resources in case you want to get the same look in your home ahead of Christmas and New Years.

Conventia Canvas Art // More Modern Abstract Art	Carlotta Southwestern Rug // More Modern Rugs	Avers Dining Table // More Mid Century Dining Sets
Artificial Tree // More Faux Plants	Dominick Lamp // More Modern Table Lamps	Candlestick Set // More Modern Decor
Sienna Planter // More Modern Planters	Colmont Leather Chair // More Modern Dining Chairs	Rudea Ceramic Vase // More Modern Vases