Around the holidays, you have a lot of stress—you have to decide what to buy for everyone on your list, actually purchase those gifts, deal with crowded shopping centres and, if you’re hosting the holiday meal, cook and clean. There’s so much to be done, especially if you’re doing it all on your own. Most often, the thing that doesn’t get accomplished is the cleaning. If you have to drop something off your to-do list, here are some ideas for prioritising the cleaning.
First, clean the main areas people will be in. This is usually your living room, dining room, kitchen, and main bathroom. If no one will be in your bedroom or spare room, you may get by without cleaning them. Just shut the doors to those rooms. If you have time, of course, you should at least give them a quick pick-up.
In the main rooms, focus on very noticeable things. Vacuum, sweep, and get rid of any cobwebs around the ceiling. If your bookshelves aren’t very dusty or aren’t noticeably dusty, save them until last just in case you don’t have time to get them done. Straighten up anything on your coffee table or tossed around the living room, too. It’s a quick process that usually takes less than ten minutes, but it can really help make the room look nice.
Also spend some time on your main bathroom. Nothing will make people think your home is icky than to have a dirty bathroom. In fact, you may spend more time cleaning the bathroom than any other room since you may want to mop it, clean the toilet, and clean the sink.
The dining room, likewise, needs a good cleaning. Make sure the floor looks nice and that the chairs are animal-hair free if you have any pets. Finally, there’s the kitchen. Here, you can cheat a bit as well. If you’ve been cooking all day, it’s expected that your kitchen will have a few dirty dishes in it. However, you may want to do a little cleaning just for your own sake. After a big holiday meal, you’re going to have a lot of dishes to do. Having the dirty dishes from the past two days piled up in addition to the holiday dishes will really give you a lot to deal with.
