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Date: Dec. 20, 2006
Tags: None
The Holidays. I have two obnoxious brothers. They used to pull the wings off flies, for all I know they are sitting at their desks doing the same right now. Since my brothers married women exactly like their mother, my sister in laws are obnoxious too.
There you go; it’s all bad. So the holidays can be somewhat of a burden, because I have to come over to sister in law number one’s (as soon as we think of a name for her, we’ll let you know) house and watch my nieces pull apart a mile of wrapping paper and try to look pleased. My nieces are never pleased with their haul at Christmas.
Me, I learned to give them – and the rest of the family – gift cards. Gift cards are a great invention, not terribly concrete, but it’s the thought and dollar value that matters most. That, and at Safeway there is rack of gift cards for all occasion and I can toss them on top of the coffee from Starbucks and the Ben and Jerry’s and take care of all three girls, plus my brothers in about three seconds. I spend that much time on family gifts because they spend that much time being grateful and appreciative.
Because, in our family, it’s not about appreciation, it’s about volume and expense. When it comes to Christmas - we’re very traditional.
So for advice on the holidays, if you are selling your house during this time of year, good for you. As you probably read over and over, the holidays are a great time to sell because only serious buyers are looking around and only serious sellers are out selling. So – its bargain time baby, come out and shop.
A decorating tip? Try tasteful. Really. A tree, Santa on the mantelpiece, a holiday themed centerpiece on the dining table. We’re good. You may want to leave the life-size crèche in the garage for the time being. I have heard that realistic plastic Jesus babies creeps out even the most devout Christian.
So, loading up your house with more than a few holiday items and you will run the risk of looking like Santa’s workshop. In fact, I toured a house that was filled with Santa-like objects and a full collection of a hundred nutcrackers in sizes ranging from small to frightening. One agent on the tour summed it up nicely when she said, “My, you have a lot of Christmas decorations don’t you?”
Don’t do this, it’s too distracting. In the suburbs it’s difficult enough to distinguish homes from one another, now all I can remember about the Elm Tree property is the five-foot nutcracker at the bottom of the stairs. Have you seen the teeth on those things?
Then again, I remember the Elm Tree property as the nutcracker house, so maybe there is a place for reverse psychology. That’s a thought as well. So you may not choose to listen to me at all.
That’s all I have to say about the holidays. Okay, one more thing; consider working hard during the holidays. If you are working hard at productive activities, then you won’t have the time to stress over un-productive activities, like delivering the perfect holiday experience for the family. Really, stop stressing. Because you know what? You won’t deliver the perfect holiday experience, no matter how many hours you devote to the process. Unless your house is made of gingerbread and you have padded walls in the living room to safely deflect the Wii controls as they fly out of the children’s hands, it will not be perfect.
Neither is anyone else’s holiday. Be grateful if you’re not flying to the mid-west in weather. Be grateful if you already live in California. And be grateful you don’t have my nieces, because sometimes I don’t even get the gift cards right.
Allison Little first appears in Death Revokes the Offer – part of the Little Book series. Read about Allison on www.missbehaved.com. Learn more about Real Estate at www.CatharineBramkamp.com or www.Century21.com
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