Christmas season is the best time of the year. It’s a time for family, friends, and lots of merriment. Sadly, statistics also indicate that burglaries around this time of the year spike exponentially. This has a lot to do with the fact that burglars are aware that there are lots of gifts in the house and probably extra money lying around. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over 400,000 burglaries take place during the holiday season. 1. Make Sure Gifts Aren’t Visible From Outside It’s such a common sight during this time of the year – a frosted window from which you can see a beautiful Christmas tree all lit up, with dozens of gifts underneath it. This sight is enough to

Thanksgiving evokes certain unshakable images: Long tables crammed with too much food. Beloved and bickering family members consuming way too much of that food. Overstuffed family members staggering away from the table to watch football. And once the crumbs and turkey bones and cranberries are cleared away, just about everyone gearing up for the biggest shopping day of the year: Black Friday. While prowling the malls for fantastic deals has become enshrined as a traditional part of many Americans’ holiday season, it has long been considered conventional wisdom that this sales fervor doesn’t extend to shopping for a home—that there’s no deluge of would-be buyers surfing the Web for listings o

Putting your garden to bed properly this fall will make a world of difference when it's time to wake it up come spring. Many chemical-based farmers commit a cardinal sin of soil management every fall—they till under plant debris in their fields and walk away, leaving the soil exposed and vulnerable to harsh winter conditions. "Unfortunately, most of those farmers don’t cover their soil," explains says Jeff Moyer, farm director at the Rodale Institute. "In fact, many plow in the fall to speed up their work flow in the spring, leaving it not only bare, but open to all the elements—not good!" The good news is, home planters can up their garden game this fall by adopting a few techniques many or

Top 10 Tips for Selling Your Home During the Holidays The holiday season from November through January is often considered the worst time to put a home on the market. While the thought of selling your home during the winter months may dampen your holiday spirit, the season does have its advantages: holiday buyers tend to be more serious and competition is less fierce with fewer homes being actively marketed. First, decide if you really need to sell. Really. Once you've committed to the challenge, don your gay apparel and follow these tips from FrontDoor. Deck the halls, but don’t go overboard. Homes often look their best during the holidays, but sellers should be careful not to overdo it o

Here's how to edit your holiday decor to better showcase your home. It’s that time of year again, when your neighborhood, maybe even your home turns into a festive display of holiday decor, but there is a fine line between tasteful and cluttered. Welcoming buyers into a home for sale covered in holiday decor with a life-size bloody Frankenstein, bats flying above and a dreary cemetery in the front yard isn't something most buyers want to come home to. Sometimes it's hard enough to get sellers to agree to remove certain objects or tone down accessories in their home or front lawn. So when it comes time to decorate with ghosts and goblins around Halloween, gourds at Thanksgiving, or put out th