Many people will start to decorate for the Christmas holiday season after Thanksgiving, which is less than one week away. Growing up, my family always had a tradition of deep cleaning The House before getting out any Christmas decorations. Perhaps it was my mother's way of using my and my siblings' excitement for Christmas to clean the house, but even so, it worked! I have continued this practice in my own home. I will clean the house from top to bottom before getting out any holiday decorations. This way, my home has been deep-cleaned at least once before having guests over to celebrate the holidays. I start by dusting all surfaces, and putting away decorations such as floral arrangements which clash with winter decorations. I put away everything that is not in place, and find a place for items that do not belong anywhere yet. I dust the ceiling fans and deep clean the floors and furniture. I clean the appliances in the kitchen and organize it a little bit so that I can use it more efficiently during my holiday baking and for hosting holiday gatherings. I deep clean the bathrooms, wash all of the windows and mirrors, and get the guest room set up for guests. I also use this time to get caught up on laundry, and usually gather clothes to be donated to the local thrift store. Do you clean your house before putting up Christmas decorations? What is on your deep cleaning list for the holidays?
You know, this thread makes me tired. Just the thought of winter cleaning gives me that feeling of fatigue. I'm okay with decorating. What I don't like is the so called general cleaning. Even the figurines inside the display cabinets needed to be wiped of the dust and every nook is checked for soot and spider's web. Now this reminds me that we have to buy Christmas lights again for the old ones surely wouldn't work anymore.
I'm quite lazy, so what I do is to try to divide the cleaning in different parts, and I do each part when I feel like it, maybe I do a lot during a week and maybe the next one I don't do anything. The important thing is that everything looks clean by the end.
Pre-decoration deep cleaning… it’s something I know I should do, but it doesn’t always happen. But I’m actually in the midst of the Konmari method, and I’ve already dropped off a sizable load of stuff to donation centers, used bookstores, and the like. Less stuff always means easier cleaning. So maybe this will be the first time I make a holiday deep cleaning happen two years in a row, haha.
I tend to do deep cleaning in the Fall and Spring. I've already done most of it for the Fall, but am planning to go through all of my Christmas decorations prior to putting them up, which involves moving the furniture around and getting into the Christmas closet behind the couch. I want to cut my amount of decorations by about half this year, since I don't use nearly what I have anymore. It's not as if I will be storing other things in the 'Christmas closet', it's that if/when I eventually move, I don't want to have to do it then, when I'll be more in the mood to simply toss everything. I do need to clean the ceiling fans again, since this is the dustiest house I've ever lived in, and I end up doing it every couple of months. I just deep cleaned the carpets and went through the pantry. The cabinets have been gone through fairly recently, so those are o.k. for now, but I also want to go through the closets in the back room, because there are a few Christmas decorations in there, as well. Another thing I do this time of year is go through all of my blankets and towels. Every year, I pull out the ones I will be replacing, and use them for the stray cats I watch over. I use the others to wrap the plants when we have freezes, which isn't that often. Once they're on the plants or being used for the strays, they stay that way for the season, then I discard them, so it's a yearly process. I also have a friend who has promotional clothing for her business that they wear to events. Once the sweatshirts get too ratty, she sends them to me to use for the strays, and I post pics on Facebook, which is a little free publicity for the company.
