Need Help with Your Christmas Clean-Up?
Guest piece from Olivia Sykes
The holidays are the best time of the year when you are a Christmas lover. But that being said they are also a very tiring and a busy time. You have to decorate your home, go gift shopping, a few times probably, to find the perfect gifts for your loved ones. Organize a holiday party or a Christmas family gathering at your house.
All of it is fun and games until the holidays are over. Then we are hit with reality and have to go back to our routines. All of our daily errands and troubles will be back. Only now there is the additional work of cleaning up after Christmas. It’s not an easy job, but it just has to be done as quickly as possible because once you postpone it you might end up having your Christmas tree up and your house decorated until spring time.
There are a few main steps in cleaning up after Christmas. The first and most important of all is, of course, de-cluttering.
- De-clutter – You and your family have surely received a number of gifts that serve you no purpose or you ended up with two same gifts, etc. As thoughtful the gestures are, you simply do not need three similar juicers, right? There are a number of things you can do with the gifts that you do not need – you can donate them, re-gift them or simply put them away in your attic. Collect all such items, or if your kid got the same toys or new clothes you can even replace the old ones. If you do not want to give away your new gifts keep them and get rid of your old things.
- Strip the Christmas decorations – it is all Christmas lights’ nature to get tangled up just by sitting in a box and not doing anything, isn’t it? We bet you know how it feels to be struggling with this every year too, this year fix your problem by wrapping your lights and even garlands around a paper towel or a gift paper roll and store them separated and organised. To prevent your ornaments from breaking use used warping paper to pack them individually before putting them in the box.
- Clean the Christmas tree – in case you use an artificial tree, use a small vacuum cleaner to vacuum all dust and glitter from the tree, then wipe the branches with some warm water and liquid dish washing soap to remove grime. Vacuum any parts of it that have fallen down or if your tree was a real one – vacuum the fallen needles. And if the tree has released some sticky pine sap that has stained your carpet carpet cleaner Islington says you can get it off with some rubbing alcohol or remaining vodka from the feasts.
Once all clutter from gifts and decorations, holiday china and other themed items, is removed from your home it is time to deal with the cleaning situation.
- Cleaning – when you take a look around you might notice various cleaning emergencies that are the aftermath of the holidays. Wine stains, water rings on furniture, dust and grime everywhere, food crumbs, wrapping paper and glitter everywhere, etc. Vacuum and dust your home thoroughly and you can even get the entire family to help you here.
While your kids help with the simple cleaning chores you can give your attention to the more serious ones – water rings can be treated with some non-gel toothpaste – spread on the stain and leave for 20 min then buff with a cloth. If your carpeting has been the victim of a wine spill you can try getting it out by using a mixture of dish soap and hydrogen peroxide. Mix them in a bowl adding a generous amount of dish soap. Use a cloth to soak up the stain as long as necessary and let the solution do its work. After that, use cold soapy water to blot the stain again and to rinse it off use lukewarm water and then a dab with a dry towel.
But cleaning is one of the very few unpleasant post-holidays elements. The most important thing is that you have a fun time with your loved ones because Christmas is all about love and caring for others. So get your entire family to help with the post-Christmas cleaning up, you all had fun and help make the mess, now let everyone help clean up.
More About Olivia
Olivia is from London. She is an owner of a small business company and a real expert in cleaning. She also writes cleaning articles for different blogs.
