I had 3 I used year before last.  I never carved them, and they sat around for decoration, until after Thanksgiving.  Never rotted.  I felt bad tossing them out.  So I spray painted them white, and used a dowel rod to hold them together and made a  snowman
 Then darn things held up all through Christmas.
@Fallon:
Awesome idea! I may copy you. I need one more pumpkin though. DD & I decorated 2 pumpkins Sunday, but we just painted them. I didn't want to deal with carving. I did, however, do the little trend where you write your initial & trace it out with hammered nails.... Looks pretty glitzy
. Love the idea of saving them for snowmen though..... If not, I was thinking about making pumpkin bread & salted/toasted pumpkin seeds. 4951