No one likes to think about cleaning at Christmas, but it is an essential task to avoid your home falling into disarray and knock out the risk of you New Year’s clean-up becoming overwhelming.
If you are already rushed off your feet wrapping gifts, going on a trip, or are feeling low energy at this highly charged time of the year, you likely don’t want to be spending hours refreshing your home.
Luckily, professional cleaners have an arsenal of super-quick last-minute pre-Christmas cleaning tasks that take less than five minutes apiece to help you reset your home for Christmas day without wasting the last of your energy.
Quick last-minute pre-Christmas cleaning tasks
Whether or not you deep clean your home before or after Christmas will come down to your energy levels, whether you are hosting or not, and how much available time you have.
If you need to opt for a quicker approach to cleaning before the big day, these are the six spots to focus your attention on.
1. Declutter key spaces only
It never hurts to work through some pre-Christmas decluttering rules, but if you only have a few spare minutes, focus on the key areas you will be using over the holidays.
Tim Conn, co-founder and president at Image One USA says, ‘Focus on the key spaces like the entryway, kitchen counters, and coffee tables. You can quickly stash items like mail, shoes, or small appliances to create a tidy, organized space. Guests will immediately notice a clean, clutter-free environment as soon as they arrive.’
Stashing clutter in decorative bins when guests visit keeps it out of the way, and way to sort through once they leave.
2. Pick up tree needles
Keeping a home clean with a real Christmas tree is a never-ending battle, but vacuuming the space around your centerpiece is a quick way to instantly make a room feel less overwhelming.
However, Sarah Aparacio, a cleaning expert at Homeaglow suggests using your best vacuum cleaner as normal might not be the best approach. ‘Don’t just roll over pine needles with your vacuum cleaner! The needles (along with any sap and resin) can easily clog roller brushes or damage the internal parts of your vacuum cleaner. While there is still a risk of clogging, using your vacuum’s attachments and hoses can help to reduce this and still quickly pick up pine needles that have fallen.’
She also adds, ‘Lint rollers [from Walmart] are great for picking up small amounts of pine needles that have fallen from your Christmas tree, especially on upholstery or even carpets, where the needles can get bedded into the fibers. It is best to keep lint rollers for quick and isolated amounts of pine needles, as you’ll likely need to replace sheets often,’ she points out, ‘and the costs associated can quickly add up if you need to buy new rollers.’
There are some ways you can stop your Christmas tree from shedding needles if you want to try to stop the problem at the source and cut back on cleaning entirely including keeping it adequately hydrated.
3. Polish high-touch surfaces
Spot cleaning to 'target hygiene' (cleaning high-touch surfaces) is essential in winter when coughs and colds are incredibly prevalent and the number of people coming in and out of your home likely increased.
Tim Conn, a cleaning expert suggests, ‘Using a microfiber cloth and giving high-touch areas like door handles, faucets, counters, and stainless steel appliances a quick polish. These small touches can instantly make your home sparkle and feel fresh.’
Spritz an anti-bacterial cleaning solution, such as Lysol sanitizing spray available at Amazon, onto your cloth for germ control. Color zoning your cleaning cloths will stop the spread of illness-inducing bacteria from bathrooms to other spaces in the home.
With a strong citrus scent, the Method products are made with plant-based ingredients for toxin-free cleaning.
Microfiber cloths are perfect for a whole host of cleaning tasks, helping to quickly pick up dust, absorb spills, and wash away stains. A stack of colored ones like this will help color zone your cleaning. Pick a color and allocate to a room or area.
Need to deal with dust quickly? A damp duster collects dust without spreading it around, for quick cleans. I tried the damp duster and was an instant convert.
4. Freshen up floors
Mopping floors the right way and knowing how often you should vacuum will play a huge part in keeping your home looking its best both before and after Christmas – and they are super quick to do before guests arrive or you slump onto the sofa with post-Christmas dinner exhaustion.
Tim continues, ‘Give your floors a fast refresh by sweeping high-traffic areas, then spot-vacuuming areas like the living room, dining room, and entryway. This is a simple way to make your home feel tangibly cleaner and more inviting without having to do a full deep clean.’
This is when having one of the best robot vacuums in play will save you even more time. Punteha van Terheyden, head of Solved, tried and reviewed the eufy Omni Pro S1 robot vacuum and mop, available at Amazon and eufy, and found it reduced her canister vacuum use by a whopping 90 per cent. She gave it five stars after testing it in her home for a number of weeks.
While not as thorough as vacuuming, sweeping is a lot quicker than lugging your vacuum out of storage before guests arrive. It's also a good step to take before vacuuming pine needles. Grab the bulk in a dustpan to avoid blockages.
5. Freshen up the air
It is easy to feel rough around the edges when we are shut up indoors all day. Improving your indoor air quality is a must to help boost your energy levels before the big day.
If you don’t want to cool your house down, the best way to do this is with the best air purifier, however, we recommend opening windows in winter to allow fresh air to flow through your home. Doing this first thing in the morning before you turn your heating on will help flush stale air out and make your home smell nice. Opening one or two windows on opposite sides of your home will create a through-breeze to clean your home’s air quickly.
Just remember to shut them again before burning on heating to make heating more efficient. Even 10 minutes of fresh air can be very restorative and also help reduce humidity and condensation in your home.
Air purifiers aren't just for allergy sufferers. They help to freshen up indoor air over the winter months when opening up windows is generally avoided.to keep you and your family healthy over the holidays.
6. Run a cleansing dishwasher cycle
If any appliance is going to see some serious use over Christmas, it is going to be your best dishwasher. Taking five minutes to run a cleaning cycle will ensure it stays working at maximum capacity over the holiday, so you spend less time rewashing or scraping stubborn food.
Cleaning expert at My Job Quote, Sarah Dempsey says, ‘Cleaning your dishwasher regularly is the best way to keep it clean from mold and limescale. Focus attention specifically on the door seal, filter and spray arms. Use white vinegar [available at Walmart] to target limescale and run it empty on its hottest cycle, to help remove food residue and any associated smells.
‘For quick cleaning before Christmas, invest in a specific dishwasher cleaner [such as the best-selling Affresh, available at Walmart] and ensure salts and rinse aid are topped up. Dishwasher salt softens the water and ultimately improves the machine's overall cleaning performance. Rinse aid [such as Finish Jet-Dry Rinse Agent, from Walmart] helps the water to rinse off the items inside the machine, meaning they dry quicker and with fewer water marks.’
Running through these simple and quick last-minute cleaning tasks will make tidying as you go on Christmas day a little bit easier, no matter if it is just the two of you, or a full house with all the extended family. And they won’t zap all your energy before, either.
