Your Opinion, Please...

To Decorate or Not to Decorate?

That is the question.

With our home being up For Sale, I'm troubled about this Christmas decorating thing.

My original aversion to decorating was that I'd put it all up, have to take it all down if we sold before Christmas, and then put it all back up in our new home, then take it all down again after the New Year. BUT, that is no longer an issue at this point since we won't have to move out before Christmas - the turn around just takes longer than 16 days now.

BUT, we still have to show our home - to any interested buyer - at any time. Which means it has to be "staged." Which kind of means it's not fully OUR HOME - we're catering to what's attractive to others.

So, there's a couple of schools of thought with decorating for Christmas when the house is on the market.

I keep going back and forth with this dilemma. THUS, I open it up to my readers (all 3 of you! :))

1) Prospective Buyers might think it's "CUTE." Like it feels like Home. Warm. Welcoming. Festive. They might even imagine their OWN decorations in those very spots.

OR

2) All the decorations just make our home look CLUTTERED.

CLUTTER = SMALL

CLUTTER = CLAUSTROPHOBIC

CLUTTER = MESSY

CLUTTER = UNKEMPT

CLUTTER = UNSETTLING

CLUTTER = DISTURBING

CLUTTER = PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNSOUND HOMEOWNERS (Think: that "Hoarders" T.V. show that everyone talks about/is disgusted by.)

I had a goal of "40 bags in 40 days" - which was literally filling up trash bags - throwing out or giving away "stuff" in our home that we didn't need, we didn't use, and we didn't LOVE. I quit counting after 24 bags, but after this big effort, I hate to bring back more stuff again, ya know?

And I KNOW that many of YOU are turned off by clutter. Remember when I blogged about this? Most of your comments were not about being horrified by the sheer NUMBER of bottles of cologne my husband had, but by the the fact that he had them all out on the bathroom counter!!!

On the flip side, there's the possibility that "THEY" might think we're Scrooges, or something, if our Christmas decorating is lacking, and will wonder what other crazy things have gone on in this house! (It's TRUE! I have these thoughts when I look at houses myself!)

But, we have to live our life, too, right?

But, anyone who has sold a house while living in it, knows that your life is NOT really your own during this time anyway.

So, which line of thinking do you follow?

Or is your opinion something else entirely?

*******

Of course, if it's more "traffic" (literally) I'm trying to get to come see our home, I could use Christmas decorating to my advantage and do it like this, I guess....