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If you’re stressed about getting everything done this holiday season, have you considered skipping the decorations? I’ll admit that you probably can’t get away with that if you have young kids, but think of the extra time you’d have. No crawling into the attic or closet to drag out decorations. No worries over watering live trees or assembling manufactured ones. No carefully unpacking ornaments and putting hooks on them. No extra things to dust around the house.
Am I sounding like a Scrooge?
Even without holiday decorating, you can still enjoy Christmas music. You’ll be able to complete holiday baking. And, of course, you can continue do your Christmas shopping. You can celebrate Christmas, but without the extra stuff you have to put away at the end of December. It’s not like you can’t see a Christmas tree in nearly every shop or office you visit. Decorations are all around us for the entire month of December. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a jolly-free refuge inside your home?
For people with pets, an added bonus of not putting up a Christmas tree or other unusual decor is that you won’t have to worry with pets disturbing or breaking anything. In the past, my cat has gone bonkers with attempting to eat bows on presents, hooks on ornaments or wax in candles. Yeah, maybe he has pica?
Besides saving you time, not decorating with lights also saves energy. Yes, I know not decorating for Christmas is a very radical idea, but try it on in your mind for a few minutes to see how you like it!
(Image via stock.xchng)
Or, you can make decorating fun and easy – use wall decals (I get mine from wallslicks.com). Easy to apply, easy to remove. You can get designs that are fun or whimsical or classic. They have a matte finish and look like they’ve been professionally painted on the wall. Even a “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree.
I have always traveled during the holidays and since I don’t have kids to come visit I been known to skip the decorating completely. I had a two-foot tall tree, a four-foot tall tree and a seven-foot tree and would decorate according to how I felt. Now I have a cluster of small trees that are pushed in the corner during the year and if I feel like it, I will get up in the attic and decorate them. If I don’t feel like it, I will just plug the lights in.
We are not decorating for Christmas this year. The reasoning? Well, we don’t have children and family is not coming to our house to celebrate – we are going to their house this year. Another reason is we are in saving mode. The economy is bad right now and all the extra money we have, we save it.(This isn’t extreme, it’s smart) By not buying a tree or other decorations and by not putting up lights, which would increase utility bills, we are saving money. We do buy frugal gifts for family and friends. I do bake and cook Christmas foods. But more importantly, we know the true meaning of Christmas, which has nothing to do with a Christmas tree or decorations. =)