I love Thanksgiving: a holiday devoted solely to gratitude, family and friends, and eating. Makes for the perfect combination, in my book. It also makes for the perfect time to FREAK OUT about the state of your home if you are the hostess of this year's gathering.
Here are a few tips to help you cope with the pre-holiday cleaning frenzy. The next post will cover planning and preparing for the actual meal.
To begin cleaning up your home, start with visually LARGE messes and tone them down or eliminate them completely. For example, if your entryway table is piled high with mail, school papers, your son's sweatshirt, the cat's toy, a purchase you're waiting to return to the mall, and a handful of business cards you haven't entered into your electronic organizer yet, then focus on moving those items off that table and permanently keeping it clear. Spend just THREE MINUTES working on it today. Call your son out of his room and instruct him to take his sweatshirt to his closet. Take the business cards and move them onto your desk (or into the trash if you know in your heart you're not ever going to call or email those people). Shred just two pieces of junk mail. Take the cat's toy and put it where it belongs. Take the "to return" item and put it in your car, right now. That's not so hard. It doesn't take long after all.
If one, three minute session isn't enough, do another one tomorrow morning while you're waiting for the coffee to brew.
MANY TASKS SEEM OVERWHELMING IN OUR MINDS, WHEN IN FACT THEY ARE SMALL AND TAKE VERY LITTLE TIME TO FINISH.
Once that table is cleared off, put a pretty fall-themed centerpiece on it, such as a silk or real floral arrangement, a candle, a small decorative box or figure that you enjoy looking at. Now that eyesore is part of your decor.
What about a bigger mess, such as the family room being well trashed by your two elementary school kids and your sticky-palmed three year old? I have great advice for you, if you will take it. Are you ready?
GET RID OF 95 % OF WHAT'S IN THAT ROOM, INCLUDING EXCESS FURNITURE.
Look, I have three kids of my own, I used to own a day care center, and I have a college degree in education. I have learned what kids need: constructive play, lots of love, and LIMITS. You need to set limits on how much they are allowed to own as well as limits on how many toys they are allowed to spread out across the floor at one time. If you dont' teach them, who will?
An aquaintance of mine had a large gathering at his modest home, and went to great lengths to clean it up before the guests arrived. While the carpets were vacuumed and the pictures on the walls dusted, the family room was unbelieveable. He cleaned HALF of it. He pushed two sofas up against the sound system and desk, leaving an area in front of the tv vacant and vacuumed. Plastic toys for his three kids were jammed behind the sofas, and their huge DVD and video collections cluttered the rest of the space.
I felt totally smothered being in that room. The man was a SLAVE to his children's desires for more toys, and he obviously could not set limits on them or himself: that room could comfortably hold one loveseat, the tv, and maybe a desk. That's it.
Perhaps that's your problem too: not setting limits on yourself or others.
YOU are 100% responsible for the state of your home. You can clean it up NOW and have a lovely space to host your Thanksgiving meal.
You can call Goodwill or the ARC and donate that extra sofa (or two). You can limit the number of videos and DVD's your kids own (20 is more than enough!). You can throw out the shelves of placemats from the early 80's; you can let go of the boxes of computer manuals from two systems ago. You can set the Christmas popcorn tins out for recycling, you can donate the baby crib that has quietly sat gathering dust in the corner of your family room now that your youngest grandchild is six.
You can do this NOW, today! You can find three minutes to look up Goodwill's phone number in the directory and make the call to schedule a pick up. There is a life of beauty waiting for you, and YOU ARE THE ARTIST TO CREATE IT FOR YOURSELF.
Here's a photo of a fall centerpiece I created last year, to inspire you. Blessings!
