Christmas cleaning tips & hacks for a stress-free holiday season

December 30th, 2015

Christmas DIY Small Appliances

All the presents have been unwrapped, the fridge is full of leftover Christmas ham & potato salad, the trees ornaments can be found scattered all over the place, and the house has been a bomb site of toys, food and dishes for the past couple of days. Now that Christmas Day is over, and it’s slowly creeping into the New Year, it’s definitely about time to start tackling all the holiday cleaning.

Argh cleaning! It can be an endless duty, especially if you were hosting the family Christmas in your household this year. So hopefully we can make your holiday season a whole lot easier with these Christmas cleaning tips and hacks we’ve compiled together.

The Christmas tree

Image courtesy of markuso at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

• Place an old pair of stockings over the nozzle of your vacuum cleaner, and secure it with a rubber band. You can then use your vacuum to clean the dust off your tinsel, non-fragile ornaments, and artificial tress. Note: The lowest setting on your vacuum cleaner should be used. 
• If you have fragile Christmas ornaments, and would rather not ‘attack them’ with a vacuum cleaner, you can give them a bit of a sprucing up by lightly dusting them with a dry soft bristle toothbrush, or your children’s soft (clean) paintbrush.
• When packing your tree away, instead of using plastic bags or rubbish bags to store your decorations, keep all your extra beer or prezzie boxes during Christmas, and store them all securely in those. Not only will they keep your decorations safer, but they’re also easier to store in cupboards and attics, as boxes can be stacked on top of each other.
• To stop your Christmas lights from tangling, and making it impossible to use them later on, wrap them around spare coat hangers for easy storing and access. Check out the step-by-step instructions on wikihow. 
• If you struggle putting your artificial Christmas tree away in its original packaging, wrap old belts around the tree to make it easier to squeeze the tree back into its box.
• Or better yet, wrap the tree, decorations and all, in heavy duty cling film to make it quicker to put away, and easier come Christmas time next year. Check out how Toni from Design Dazzle wraps her tree, here. Note: It’s best to use this method if you have enough storage space for it.

Image sourced from Design Dazzle

• If your household prefers to have a real tree, depending on how it’s been cared for and how long you’ve already had it, a well looked after tree can last up to 6 weeks. So either keep it decorated and beautiful in your home, or move it out to your backyard for a festive outdoor decoration. This will come handy if you’re planning on hosting a post-Christmas BBQ. Wrap it in fairy lights, and you have yourself a festive outdoor light.
• If you find yourself with sappy hands after removing your real tree, grab a jar of mayonnaise out of the fridge and rub a spoonful in your hands to get rid of the stickiness. Note: Milk will also do the trick if you don’t have any mayo. 

The home

Image courtesy of Mister GC at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

• Keep your home clutter free by being realistic when putting away decorations and holiday items. Is it broken? Do you really need it? It’s also quite nice to donate items you no longer want or need.
• If your noticing your home is starting to fill with piles of old Christmas toys, books and clothes, donate some of those older items by getting your kids to sit down after Christmas Day and go through them all, putting aside the ones they want to donate. This will not only help teach your kids the gift of giving, but it will also help rid your home of unwanted clutter.
• Instead of constantly pulling out the vacuum cleaner to do a quick spruce up. Get the kids to run lint rollers or sticky tape along the carpet. This is also particularly handy on Christmas day, right after all the presents have been opened.
• Speaking of kids, did you know they make great Santa’s little cleaning elves! Put the grandkids in little elf costumes and tell them Santa asked them to help Nana, or mum clean up. Sharing the cleaning tasks between family members means the cleaning will be done in half the time, giving you more time to relax with loved ones.

Prior to Christmas

• If you’re still finding things a little bit too overwhelming, you can make it even easier to stay on top of things next Christmas by following the tips and tricks by techtalk. Click here for more information.

Hopefully these tips and tricks will help keep the stress levels down these Christmas & New Year Holidays.

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net