It’s the holiday, and the last thing anyone would want to spend most of their time doing is…. Cleaning, for hours on end. During this time, we like to spend time with friends and family that we may have not seen in a long time, we’d love to get together and celebrate, enjoy nice food, and make wonderful memories. But constant cleaning can get it on all the fun especially if you are hosting, the amount of time you spend cleaning up can really reduce the amount of time you spend making those memories, and nobody wants that – here are 7 tips to make hosting and cleaning during the holiday easy and less stressful.
You can do all these tasks at once or do each one daily for the next 5 days leading up to Christmas or you can use these tips throughout the season. Feel free to use them as you like to make cleaning easy this holiday.
1. Clear up any visible clutter
Start by clearing up any visible clutter, for example, in the Kitchen. Clear your countertops, if you have 3 chopping boards and you always use one daily, put the rest of the chopping boards in one of your kitchen cabinets. If you have a blender, food processor, electric tin opener, or kettle that you rarely use but it’s on top of your countertop, store it away. The less stuff you have on your countertops, the easier it will be to clean your countertop. Clear that table or a chair that has so much stuff on it that it can’t be used as a table or chair. A cluttered house takes up much time to clean.
2 Prioritize cleaning spaces where you will spend the majority of your time in
Clean spaces where you, your family, and any guest (if you will be hosting) will be spending the majority of your time in and cleaning them. This will help cut down your cleaning time in half because if you will be spending more time in the living room, you spend more time making sure that it is clean and you may not need to spend hours and hours cleaning your garage, office, etc.
3 Make a cleaning kit
Make a cleaning kit with all the supplies you could require during the holiday season. You can use a basket and store items that help clean spills, and stains, like your white vinegar, dish soap, a microfiber cloth, etc. Have the cleaning kit in a spot that can be easily accessible to tackle messes as they occur.
4 Clean as you go.
This is one of my favorite tips all year round; it helps to keep my home clean and tidy. Wash dishes after us, tackle messes as soon as possible, try and not to shift a mess that needs to deal with now for later.
5 Consider clean-up when planning the menu.
When planning out the menu for the holidays, most of us make the mistake of choosing recipes with a long list of ingredients, which require a lot of different cookware. Go for the straightforward dishes that you can quickly prepare on a single pan or in a single pot to reduce the amount of time you spend cleaning up.
6 Line your cookware
This is a game changer, I like cooking but I don’t always look forward to washing the dishes after a storm of cooking. By lining cookware with parchment, you can avoid the time-consuming cleaning of burnt-on gunk, scrubbing off any cookie remains on your pans. When used properly, parchment paper or inserts will free up your kitchen sink and after cooking you will rejoice when all you have to do is throw away the parchment paper or liner after the meal is served.
Do your best to enjoy this time with the people in your life, and be present in the moment. You can keep your home clean these holidays without spending too much time cleaning. I hope you find these tips helpful, do share in the comment down below your favorite tip or any holiday cleaning tips that you live by.
Cleaning the house is definitely one thing I don’t look forward when thinking of having guests over for Christmas, but with your tips it sound very manageable.
Love these tips!