How to Quickly Clean for the Holidays

As the holidays are creeping upon us again, everyone is rushing to clean the house. The kids are going through that stack of papers you have been meaning to shred and you have your husband helping you with the dishes. You are scrambling to get things done before guests arrive and make your home look like it has not been lived in unattended to the cleaning for the past year. You have so many things piled up that every time you walk into a room you are overwhelmed and questioning why you agreed to host in the first place? Does this sound like you? You might be pleased to know you are not alone! Below are some things you can do to help break down the task, so you don’t get overwhelmed just by walking in a room.

The absolute first thing you will want to do is walk around any room that you can with a garbage bag picking up everything that you know can be thrown out. By doing this, you are clearing out unnecessary clutter and the house will look a little bit better from this small change. The best part of this task is picking up any garbage that you see can be done by everyone, so you make sure not to miss anything. If it helps, you can turn this into a game. Whoever picks up the most pieces of trash wins and gets to choose the next cleaning task that they would like to do. Can you imagine how fast this will get done when your kids know they get to choose which chore they would like to do if they pick up the most garbage?

Secondly, if you have anything that you know you are going to donate, don’t let it sit there. Take it to the place you are going to donate and drop the items off. This step will get more things out of your house, decreasing the clutter even more. Ask everyone in the household if they have any items to donate. During the holiday season is a great time for convincing the family to donate as most people tend to be in a more generous mood.

The previous two were the easy things. From here, things start to become a little more complicated. Don’t worry, though, breaking it up will help. Maybe you are sweating now since you haven’t done any type of cleaning in a year and spent all your time watching television? What a great time for a break. Grab some hot chocolate, turn on a Hallmark movie, and cuddle up while you are reading the rest of this article. Who knows, maybe now you are more motivated and want to keep going? If you are, that is great! If not, guess what! You have guests coming in less than two weeks so get it together, set a timer for your break, then get back to work!

If you are like me, you have that one room that you have piled everything into that hasn’t even crossed your mind in the past three years. Guess what, now is the time to clean that out! Why am I telling you to clean out a room you haven’t gone into in the last three years when you have guests coming in two weeks? Let me explain. If you haven’t gone into a room in three years, it is most likely that you can get rid of several items in that room. Start by breaking the room into sections and do each section a little bit at a time. Create three different piles of items; things to keep, things to donate, or things to throw away. Obviously, throw away the items you have in the throw away pile. It might save you some time to just take a garbage bag with you in the first place so you can throw these items in as you are going through everything. Then take everything to be donated and drop it off.

Guess what! Once you are done with this step, you will now have a storage space to get everything out of sight in time for your guests’ arrival. Now you are left with the basic chores of dusting, sweeping, mopping, etc. Phew! That wasn’t so bad now, was it? Make sure that you do go back into that room where you hid everything and complete the same processes. Once you are done throwing things away and donating items, you will be able to find a place for everything. Be sure to start with the bigger items first as this will create a noticeable difference. The important thing is to stay up-to-date with the cleaning so the next time you are asked to host a holiday at your house you don’t have to frantically clean before everyone arrives. Happy Holidays everyone!