The holiday season is a wonderful time of year, but it’s not without its chaos. With an endless stream of guests and visitors, food to cook and prepare and presents to wrap/unwrap, the holiday season certainly can create madness!
In order to combat the disarray that’s likely to descend on your home, there are a few things you should bear in mind. In this guide I will show you how to keep your house tidy and clean through the holiday season madness!
Keeping your house clean and tidy during the holiday season
There’s so much to remember to do during the festive season. Countless cookies to be baked and a plethora of presents need to be wrapped; it can be hard to keep on top of the housework amongst all the madness.
Thankfully, there are a few steps you can take to keep your house as tidy as possible during the holidays.
Deep clean before you decorate
While you’re sure to keep your home clean and tidy all year round, you might not take part in a thorough deep clean as often as you’d like.
The holiday season is the perfect time to conduct a thorough deep clean of every room in your house. The best way to go about this is to deep clean before you decorate for the holidays.
Before you get the decorations out, give your whole house an entire clean so that it’s fully prepped for the festivities.
Start by wiping down the walls, dusting around the baseboards, cleaning the windows and deep cleaning your carpets. Basically, you should do a deep clean of anywhere that you wouldn’t usually clean on a daily or weekly basis.
While you’ll obviously still be cleaning throughout the holiday season, it’s a good idea to get your deep clean out of the way before the decorations go up. You may even tidy up so much that you’ll find new places to hang decorations!
Clear away clutter
This may seem like a fairly obvious point to make but it’s one that can often be overlooked at this time of year.
With the inevitably of new gifts, toys and presents descending on to your home, you need to try and clear away as much clutter as possible.
Once you’ve conducted your thorough deep clean, start by sorting out the essentials that you need to keep out during the holiday season. Things like your living room furniture and kitchen utensils will obviously be used over the Christmas period.
However, you may not be using things like old games, and you might not want to leave valuables out on display. Especially if you have lots of family coming around; children running riot at Christmas is not what you want with a house full of antiques.
While of course you don’t have to get rid of these completely, it is a good idea to store them away somewhere safe during the course of the festive season.
As well as valuables and breakables, you should also clear plenty of space for new gifts and household items that will inevitably arrive on Christmas Day. Try to keep your storage space as clear as possible at all times, so that you can add anything else in as you go.
You should also make sure you have plenty of room in your house for the likes of extra seating and possibly even places to sleep. Throughout the festive period, you’re likely to have a lot of guests staying and visiting so it’s important that they have somewhere to sit and sleep that’s free from clutter.
Stock up on cleaning essentials in advance
Another great piece of advice on how to keep your house tidy throughout the holiday season madness is to stock up on your cleaning essentials in advance.
While you’ll obviously need all your cleaning supplies for your pre-Christmas deep clean, you should also make sure you have plenty of supplies to last you throughout the whole season.
With lots of visitors and chaotic children who are on a sugar rush, there’s bound to be plenty of spills and stains that need cleaning up. Make sure you’re fully stocked up on the best carpet cleaners, so you can be on hand straight away to mop up any disasters.
As well as an excellent carpet cleaner, you’ll also want to stock up on plenty of other essentials. Remember to have polish, window cleaner, washing up liquid, laundry detergent, plus everything else you can think of!
One very important thing to remember as well, is to make sure you have ample toilet paper to last you throughout the holiday season. With guests constantly coming and going, there’s a good chance that you could run out if you’re not well stocked up so make sure you’re prepared ahead of time!
Keep on top of the laundry
While the holiday season is a time for unwinding, switching off and spending some quality time with your family, unfortunately household chores don’t stop! You won’t need to do a deep clean every single day (thanks to your pre-festive season deep clean!) but there will be a few things that you’ll need to keep on top of.
One of the most effective ways to keep your house clean and tidy through the holiday season madness is to keep on top of the laundry. There’s nothing worse than running out of clean clothes when you have so many festive parties to attend!
Don’t pressure yourself to do it every single day but try to keep your laundry basket as low as possible so it doesn’t get overwhelming when it piles up!
It will also help to keep your home looking much tidier if you don’t have piles of dirty washing scattered around the house! Not only that, but it will help keep your sanity if you know you don’t have to worry about masses of washing that need doing.
Get the whole family involved
While the rest of the family might not be too happy about this, it will make everyone’s lives much easier (and tidier) if everyone gets involved.
Dedicate a specific cleaning task to each member of your household who’ll then be responsible for completing that particular job. There may be smaller tasks that need to be done every day such as the washing up or hoovering. But then there’ll also be tasks that only need to be done once or twice a week.
You may want to have a calendar system whereby each task is completed at around the same time each day by the same person so that the house keeps nice and tidy.
The more that everyone helps out with household chores, the more that everyone can enjoy the holiday season. It’ll also mean that the responsibility will be split between everyone so there’s not too much pressure on one individual to keep the house clean and tidy.
When it comes to keeping your house tidy over the holiday season, there are a number of steps you can take to ensure everything runs smoothly. Make sure you conduct a deep clean beforehand and have a stock of all the cleaning supplies available for when you need them. The most important thing to remember however, is to have fun!
