With family and friends set to visit over the festive season, avoid any extra stress by following our quick and simple Christmas cleaning guide that will leave your house sparkling and give you a clean, blank canvas to decorate.
Tidy house, tidy mind
Where to begin? A great top tip for time saving at this time of year is to consider the ‘party path’. If you are having overnight guests, you’ll need to focus more attention on bedrooms and sleeping arrangements, but if you’re just hosting for the big day, consider just the key areas. Creating a clean and cosy festive sanctuary will require places to cook, sit, eat and drink, so make a list of necessary jobs to start the seasonal clean. Any rooms you won’t be using (maybe a home office, playroom or conservatory) – put these at the bottom of the list and instead focus on kitchen, lounge and dining, and bathrooms. You’ll save yourself time and effort while still showing off your lovely, clean home.
Deck the hall(way)
First impressions set the tone for your Christmas Day. Starting with your beautiful wreath outside, and a new festive diffuser on a console table in the hall will allow spiced cinnamon scents to greet your guests and enhance the festive spirit. Make space in hallways for guests’ coats and shoes, and then move on to the flooring. Clean wooden floor and kitchen floors with a quick and easy hard floor sweeper to combine sweeping and dusting in one, and then finish off by giving the floors a polish for added shine. Tackle the lounge and stair carpets and you’ll quickly see a big difference. Reward yourself with a tick off the list!
Steam, soaps and festive scents
The bathroom is less likely to be festooned with tinsel, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be clean, fresh and a little bit festive for your guests. Consider ramping up your usual bathroom bleaching and cleaning routine by steam cleaning, to ensure you have sanitised taps and door handles, keeping everyone extra safe. Swapping to a festive pine and eucalyptus scented hand soap will complement your bathroom scented candles and continue your Christmas ambiance into the bathroom.
May your (kitchen) be merry and bright
Prepare for the mountain of Christmas cooking by cleaning out your oven and fridge. Neither of these tasks are likely to win any polls of our favourite household jobs, but once the forgotten leftovers and expired dips are gone, there will be more room for wine, desserts and Christmas dinner fixings. It’s easier to get excited about preparing beautiful festive recipes when your workstation is clean and fresh. Plus, in many homes, the kitchen is the heart of the house. You will be able to proudly show your guests in to a gleaming kitchen ready for Christmas celebrations.
Festive freshen up
Polish furnishings, shelves and coffee tables, and a great top tip is to strategically add a few more coasters around, on bookshelves, next to armchairs and on sideboards. This will give your guests ideal places to rest their mulled wine glasses while maintaining your polished surfaces. Clean your dining chairs and table, ready for your beautiful Christmas table décor. Floral arrangements, table runners and your best dinnerware all looks best against a high-shine surface.
Oce the home has had a deep-clean, you can relax and enjoy the Christmas period. Quick evening top-ups could include dusting any baubles that have lost their shine, polishing glasses for drinks and sweeping up a weekly dustpan of pine needles. Try setting a 15-minute timer for these smaller tasks and do as much as you can in the time. Christmas cleaning doesn’t need to come with bags full of stress – after all, it’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Happy cleaning!
If you have any top tips, share them in the comments below or Tweet us @EwbankLtd using the hashtag #MeandEwbank.
Read more of our how-to guides, for information on cleaning hints and tips and using your Ewbank products.
