How to Keep Your Home Clean During the Holidays
Holiday season is officially upon us and whether we like it or not, it requires some extra effort to keep our family and homes clean and organized. Between the holiday parties, family visits and last minute gift buying, we’ve found a way to ensure any holiday stress isn’t because of a dirty home!
Vacuum Under the Tree Often
If you have any sort of foliage - whether it’s a few plants or a real holiday tree, plan to vacuum around it often! Holiday trees especially can shed needles frequently and in mass amounts. Vacuuming around the tree will also catch any sparkles or glitter from holiday cards and ornaments. Although you won’t be able to clean every sparkle or piece of glitter until what seems like months after the holidays, you’ll at least be able to contain it to ensure it doesn’t get out of hand.
Keep Cleaning Supplies Within Reach
Having designated caddies on each floor of your home with products that you can quickly grab and use is the best way to not waste time. You won’t have to go around collecting the different products that you use, you’ll just simply grab the caddy that had everything you need and get to work. Just ensure that the products are in a child-safe area of your home!
Spray Down The Shower After Use
Method Daily Shower Spray is a natural cleaner that I’d recommend but there are several others that have the same purpose. These cleaners work by spraying a fine mist on all wet surfaces after each shower - that’s it! No scrubbing, rinsing, etc. Although we still recommend a deep clean about once a month with this method, it will ensure you don’t have to do one as often!
Clean Up After Baking
We all know that baking is BIG during the holidays! Whether it’s holiday cookies or a yummy loaf of bread you’re making for your neighbor, your oven probably sees much more use during the holiday season than any other time during the year. Baking can leave quite an overwhelmingly messy kitchen and although it’s tempting to procrastinate the clean up process - don’t hesitate! Spend the time to ensure your entire mess is cleaned and put away, so that you can focus your attention to other things!
Vacuum Daily in High Traffic Areas
Even if the rest of your house feels like it’s a mess, just simply spending 15 minutes vacuuming high-traffic areas will make it feel so much more fresh. Doing this will also reduce the amount of hair and dust that’s floating around, meaning you’ll clean your surfaces, fans and baseboards less often!
Put Things Away As You Use Them
This can be challenging if you have kids but being conscious of the things you use during the day and putting them away immediately after use, making a big difference in your home’s organization. It can be so easy to set something down and walk away from it and although that one item may seem harmless, it sets the precedence for the rest of the items you’ll pick up later! If you get in the habit of putting something away immediately after it’s use, you’ll have less items laying around to eventually spend a significant amount of time cleaning up and putting away later.
Keep Surfaces Clear
This will ensure that you have a home that’s clutter free, and since clutter = stress, this will be one less tick mark during what seems to be one of the most stressful times of the year! Kitchen counters are usually the first to accumulate unnecessary items, so pay extra attention to what’s on your countertops and decide whether they really need to be there or not. This can also go hand-in-hand with #1. If you have designated caddies throughout the house with cleaning products, it will make it much easier to give surfaces a quick wipe down.
Clean As You Cook
This is a big one for me! Cleaning as you cook prevents the dreaded pile of dishes once cooking and eating has concluded. There is nothing worse than finishing a relaxing meal you worked so hard on making, to then spend time doing all of the dishes that you accumulated during the process. You’ll still have a few to clean up once you’re done eating but trust me - it’s way less daunting than an entire sink full! I swear it makes dinner so much more relaxing, too.