Holiday Entertaining: Do you feel pressure to have a perfectly neat & clean house?

[ha98ed14]

My choices this year are to host the 2-days-after-Christmas in-law dinner or be stuck going to SIL's. I have to decide which is the lesser of the two evils. If I have it here, then I get it on my terms, but I also feel this huge pressure to have an immaculately clean house. If you're hosting, WDYD? Clean for days? Declutter and hire a one time maid service? Not worry about the "lived in" look?

It's even more complicated because our house is small. It fits the 3 of us just fine, but add S&BIL and their 4 children plus my M&FIL and it's gonna be tight. But it's tight at SIL's too because they are hoarders. I'm not joking. They have to unearth the dining room table in order for us to eat.

[SnuggleBuggles]

So, yesterday I hosted a party and I had visions of a clean, sparkling, clutter free house. I got 90% to the goal then ran out of time! No one cared one bit. In the final 1.5 hours before the party I started chucking stuff in my bedroom and shut the door. Of course, one of the kiddos wound up in there and some of the grown ups saw it. You know what though? We joked about it and it was fine! I invited people that I knew would like me even if my house wasn't perfect. I think I am giving up on perfect.

I have a list of priorities now- clean table, vacuumed floor (maybe mopped kitchen and bathroom floor if there is time), clean bathrooms, fresh towels and toilet paper in the bathroom, picked up to a good degree but not obsessed about everything lined up or put away perfectly (the kids will just tear things apart in 10 minutes anyway!!), good food, good drinks, and good company.

I wish I had 15 more minutes yesterday b/c my bin of misc. crap that should have been hidden in my bedroom is still sitting right here, prominently, in my family room. Ah well.

Beth

[dotgirl]

I blame my mom, but .. yes. Well. Sort of. I want my house basically totally clean, all the time. It drives me nuts when I have to clear clutter off the table before dinner, or the coffee table has stuff piled on it. Guh, I'm getting irritated thinking about it!

Fortunately I have a twice weekly housekeeper, and she's coming this week - and our party is next week, so I'll be set. (And, I have to say, having a housekeeper really helps keep the clutter down, cause I don't want to pay her to sort mail, you know? So we keep everything tidy and she does the deep cleaning.)

[jenfromnj]

I can get a bit crazy about it for family events, but that's just because my MIL is really persnickety about those kinds of things, and has a tendency to gossip, and I just don't want to deal with it (the drama she tried to cause b/c I hadn't vaccumed my house when they dropped in 5 days after I had a c-section was ugly!). But otherwise, for my own family or friends, I try not to get too crazy--they don't really care if they can see their reflection in our wood moldings, LOL.

Pre-DS, I cared a lot more--now I just accept that there's a certain amount of chaos here most of the time, it's kind of our new normal. We also used to have a cleaning woman when we were both working, so that made a huge difference.

[Edensmum]

I do, but honestly my house is just not put together at the moment. I have the coffee table pushed against the entertainment center to prevent ds from getting in there, and a bin of clothes being used as a gate, the chair pushed to block an outlet, and a large play yard type gate blocking off the living room. So even clean it's not really right lol.
Then I feel like we are overwhelmed with stuff. I'm stressing about Christmas because I know they are getting more toys and there are so many around now that I spend most of my day picking them up or walking around them. I need time to purge some but ds is just now getting into the baby toys and more are coming out.

[kijip]

I do not. My house is pretty clean and we have a cleaning service now which makes it easier but if someone is gonna be uptight about duplos on the living room floor than they are not kindred spirits to me or mine. So no pressure.

My brother's house is a hot mess disaster and it is a total bummer to have holidays there because he does not clean up at all. Ever. Anything that is cleanish with or without some clutter is fine by me for holiday dinner.

[rlu]

yes, but we don't ever get the house spankin' clean. We generally shut the doors to the office and our bedroom. Our house is definitely lived in. My mom's is always clean.

[KrisM]

I do want it all clean, but it won't be all picked up and neat. I find it's impossible to stay on that while the kids are still in the house. We're hosting Christmas Eve this year and I will start cleaning the week of and by Thursday it will all be clean enough. Thursday night I'll finish all the clean-up that will happen, but the kids rooms will not be perfect for sure. Neither will our bedroom be. DH generally takes the kids to the basement to play while I finish things up, so the main floor does look good, but the rest is eh.

[niccig]

I do. And it's because of how I was raised. I run around like a mad woman snapping at DH and DS for even *thinking* about getting something out that I just put away. I'm cleaning, putting things away, hiding things in my closet. And then there's the stress about the food. My mother makes everything from scratch, so I feel like I must do the same.

You know what? Behaving like that means I'm so stressed I do NOT enjoy the holiday celebration. And holidays are about PEOPLE and MEMORIES and EXPERIENCES...not about whether you can see your reflection in your gleaming wooden table or a home-baked apple pie. So, I'm setting new expectations for myself.

I prepare like SnuggleBuggies does - vaccum, clean bathrooms, clean kitchen so we can work at the counters. I'll neatly stack things, put them away so I have clean horizontal surfaces. Food, I make what I have time for and I buy what I can't do.

It sounds like your house on it's worst day will be better than your SIL's, so I wouldn't overly stress about it. I would also host the dinner, as you don't like that everything revolves around SIL's plans, so start a precedent of YOU having some of the holiday celebrations.

[srhs]

oh man, covered table = hoader?
Can it just mean too little space and too little time?