I don’t know about you, but I find it to be such a struggle to keep my house clean during the holidays. Not only am I crazy busy, meaning I have less time to clean than I normally do, but I also have more stuff in my house. I absolutely love how festive and cheerful my house looks during Christmas, but the upkeep can be a pain!
Y’all know I am for sure a sequins and glitter kind of girl, and this means my Christmas décor contains lots of bling bling. Case in point… le tree:
Tree #1
I love my tree. I mean, I big pink puffy heart love my tree. However, said tree has left about 10 tons of glitter all over my living room floor. I vacuum and vacuum and vacuum some more, and the glitter never leaves. It’s the same thing all throughout my house. Glitter in abundance, and y’all know glitter likes to migrate. Which is why I went to work today with glitter all over the butt of my dress pants. Nice.
I’m the epitome of a frazzled mommy, and I struggle to keep the house clean in the best of circumstances. I’m here today to share some tips with you on keepin’ it clean while decorating for and during the holiday season.
Tip #1: Decorate in one weekend. Yes, I know it can be a handful, especially if you’re like me and you put up four Christmas trees. However, 15 tubs of Christmas decorations strewn throughout your house is bound to cause you undue stress. Do yourself a favor and knock out the decorating in one weekend. Then you’ll have weeks to enjoy the ambiance before you have to drag those tubs back out and put it all away!
Tip #2: Put your tree(s) up on one day, and decorate the next. (Of course, this only pertains to us using artificial trees.). I hate hate HATE putting together my Christmas tree. There is nothing worse to me than “fluffing” the tree. I’m paranoid about gaping holes and will spend 2 hours post-fluffing contorting myself to see “is that a bare spot?!”. Get the painful part out of the way on day one so that the actual decorating can be an enjoyable family activity.
Tip #3: If you have young children, take a few minutes when you’re breaking down your tree and put together a separate box of shatterproof ornaments. That way your younger children will have ornaments to hang next year, and you won’t have to worry about searching through your ornament stash to find something they won’t break.
Tip #4: If you have lots of glitter frou frou for your tree, consider putting down trash bags around your tree until you’re done decorating. This will cut down on the mess. This helps during the “fluffing” process – I usually lose little bits of the tree as I pull apart and arrange the branches.
Tip #5: At the end of the holidays, have a tub for each room. Pack the decorations for that room in one tub, and label it. This will make it easy peasy to decorate next year. If you have multiple trees, have an ornament box/tub for each tree. I decorate my trees by color/theme, so if they get mixed up, it takes me lots of time to sort it all out.
Once you’re fully decorated for the season, the key to keeping your house beautiful is to maintain. If you are anything like me, your messes tend to snowball. I have to clean every.single.day or my house is a giant chaotic mess. I spend 30 minutes before bedtime picking things up, putting them away, and vacuuming, and this routine keeps my house clean and company ready.
I hope this was helpful to you! What are your tips for keepin’ it clean during Christmas?
I am sharing my holiday home decor and cleaning tips for the chance to win prizes from The SITS Girls and Great Cleaners.
6 comments:
I am right there with you! It is so hard to clean around the decorations even though I love them! The last two years I have decorated one room at a time by doing one room a night. Last year I got smart and organized everything into bins by room! It's been super easy! Lots of great tips!
I only use the red & green tubs for my Christmas stuff. I can go to the stuff I need without having to look through a tub to see what's in there. Also, invest in a package of those "Invoice Enclosed" self-stick, clear enclosures. Put one on one end of a tub, but leave one end unattached (like a pocket). Inside the 'pocket' place an index card with what is stored in the tub. I also store my items by room. You can get the enclosures at an office supply store. Thanks for sharing your tips!
I worked in the seasonal department back in my Lowe's days. I put together so many Christmas trees that year. I was so sick of it that I had a tiny 2ft tree at home. :P
I do hate getting glitter everywhere. I was working on gifts and there was glitter involved. Later that afternoon I noticed Gene's butt sparkled. I have no idea how a tiny piece of glitter got into his diaper.
This was such a great post! I love Christmas decorations, but having so much 'stuff' around the house drives me crazy sometimes. The biggest cleaning tip I have for the holidays is getting an artificial tree. I did the real tree thing twice in our house with two dogs and a baby and it was a DISASTER....dog drinking the water...needles EVERYWHERE. I was vacuuming multiple times a day. I love the smell of a real tree, but fake is the way to go!
Great tips. I love the one about a box of unbreakable ornaments. My hubby packed our Christmas up last year and I was searching for unbreakable ornaments for the kids to hang and it was a pain. But, I can't complain since hubby did all the work of packing it up for me....
Excellent post! I just put up one small one for myself. If I ever move up to a larger one, these are some excellent tips.
Haven't put my tree up yet this year. My house is a mess with the end of the semester, finals and longer work hours. It'll all be over by the end of the week and that's my first major project to attack - scrubbing the house from top to bottom.
Post a Comment