Holiday Cleaning

Things may be fully holiday decorated at our house, but things seem more disheveled than usual. I'm pretty sure it's because we a) have a super small house, b) bring so much additional "stuff" in (like gifts, Christmas cards, wrapping, etc) this time of year, and c) didn't plan ahead and clean before the onslaught of the holidays. So, today's just a brain dump of all the "unfun" stuff to do so that my brain isn't swimming by Christmas. Let's blame my mother; she always had the house quite clean for the holidays. I always assumed it was because we were having a special guest (Santa) come; it was probably actually because of the REAL guests (family) coming. Duh, Meg.

Anyhoo, some of this I'm sure I won't get to, but I also have T-W-O whole weeks off for the holidays, so I foresee a "New Year project" or two here...

- Kitchen walls/shelves. My open shelving area is a bit of a hot mess. The dishes we use all the time are perfectly clean, but the shelves themselves have a layer of grease (which attracts more than a little dust and probably cat fur) and need a good scrubbing and reorganizing.

- Kitchen cabinets. Also in the kitchen and also in need of a good scrubbing are my cabinets. The insides are also SUPER disorganized (namely the bottom ones, which hold all cookware). Truth be told, a scrub + paint job are in order. Blah.

- The damn "V." Okay. So. Over Hadman's crib, I applied papier-mache letters that spell out "LOVE" when he was a baby. They've worked perfectly up until this point. One day, while he was supposed to be napping (that's a whole other issue lately), I hear over the monitor a weird clicking noise. Come to find out, he had pulled the "V" off of the wall and started using it as a clapper -- tearing the middle of the letter so that he could "clap" the two sides together. I. Was. Livid. He got pretty upset, too. He's still asking where the V is and I have a hard time not snarkily responding that he's responsible for the death of the V. (sigh) I don't say that. But I want to. :-\

-  Office disorganization. This is an ongoing headache. For now we've just gotta pick the place up and make it look presentable, but ultimately we've gotta figure out our storage and do a total overhaul of how we use the space.

- Gifts are messy. I love giving gifts, and even kind of enjoy wrapping them. But, keeping the joint somewhat picked up is a pain. I always end up with a bag containing tags, ribbons/bows, tape, and a pen that I use for the whole shebang, and generally keep a large box of boxes, bags, tissue paper, and gift wrap nearby, but I'm not one to schlep the whole thing down to the basement when done only to drag it back up later. Maybe I'm just lazy? We also have a HUGE gift that arrived, box in shambles, that's giving me an eye twitch.


This is all aside from the fun "responsibilities" of the holiday, of course, and the usual upkeep of the joint. Can you say floor mopping? :-( I was hoping to get a chore or two (along with a fun "chore" or two!) out of the way today, thanks to some inclement weather, but that didn't turn out to be very bad. Blah.

I didn't really do a good fall cleaning this year, so if I had I'm sure I'd be less bummed about these jobs. So, please don't take this as complaining as much as my own mental checklist of crap I have to do -- and commiserating, if you will! :-)

What about you guys? Any chores you dread doing but that you're sick of having hanging over your heads this time of year?