How to quickly tackle the post-Christmas clean-up

Take the decorations down

Yes, we know it’s sad, and yes we know it’s not as much fun as putting them up, but the first step to getting your house ready for the new year is saying goodbye to the Christmas decorations and taking them down.

There’s lots to consider when you take the decorations down, and it’s not just realising that your rooms feel much bigger than you remember!

It’s never just as simple as pulling down the paper chains or removing the fairy from her perch on the tree, there’s storage and recycling to factor in!

Storage is the big thing when it comes to taking down the decorations, as you really don’t want to make things more difficult for yourself next year.

The first thing to do is to remove any batteries, as you don’t want them to rot and damage your decorations while in storage for the year ahead.

If any of your batteries still have life in them, you may either want to keep them with the decorations until next year or have them handy for any battery emergencies. For expired batteries, you should recycle them - our stores have drop off points for battery recycling. Find your nearest wilko here

Top tip - when you’re putting your festive lights away, wrap them around some cardboard. It helps stop them becoming tangled and means you won’t spend most of November trying to untangle them!

Dealing with the tree

This can be quite a big task, so worth a whole section of this blog by itself!

There’s a lot to consider with the tree, and what you need to do can depend on whether you’ve gone real or fake this year, but a little bit of planning can get you on top of this in no time.

Our first top tip is to wrap or box your artificial tree before you put it in to storage. This will help prevent it from gathering dust all year and save you a big clean up job next Christmas.

If it’s a real tree the best thing you can do is compost it. If you don’t have the means to do that at home, you should contact your local council to find out about their tree composting scheme, if they have one.

If you have a real tree, then the real struggle comes with all those discarded pine needles. So the best thing to do is take the job to task now and give the room a deep clean, and that may mean moving the sofas, tables and any other furniture that could be covering those needles.

Whatever you do to gather the needles, though, don’t try picking them up with the vacuum! You’ll end up clogging the pipes and potentially damaging it.

For this job, we recommend that you go old school – use either a good dustpan and brush or a lint roller, which are amazing at removing needles from carpets and soft furnishing.

Give the oven some love

You’ve likely worked your oven hard over the festive period, so now it’s time to give a little back. All you need to do for a quick clean is:

1. Make sure your oven is switched off and cool
2. Take out the racks and leave them to the side
3. Mix a little baking soda with water to create a paste, and then spread it over the inside of your oven (use rubber gloves for this bit!)
4. Let it rest overnight (surely a good excuse to get in a takeaway!)
5. Put some white vinegar in a spray bottle and spray around the oven. It will react with the baking soda, creating a foam
6. You can then wipe down with a damp cloth, leaving a lovely clean oven behind.

Now it’s time to get it dirty all over again!

Alternatively, if you want something that’s pre-mixed, just get yourself a good oven cleaner and follow the instructions!

Check your floors

With everything put away and stored for another year, it’s time to turn your attention to the floors and those unsightly stains that may have escaped your attention over the festive period.

Carefully check your carpet and flooring for any spilled eggnog or other festive treats you may have missed while the party was in full swing.

If you’re not sure of the best way to tackle those tea stains, you should check out our blog on how to tackle everyday mishaps around the home. As well as tea on the carpet, we take a look at other common cleaning calamities around the home and what you can do to remedy them. Check it out here.

If you’ve got spills and stains on different types of flooring, check out our blog on floor cleaning. We look at what works best and what you should avoid for different types of floor – it’s great starting point for your post-Christmas clean.

Give the beds a refresh

If you’ve had guests staying for Christmas, it’s probably a good time to give your beds a refresh now that they’ve gone. The first thing to do is strip the beds, of course, and give all the sheets and covers a good wash. Nothing beats the fresh smell of laundry, and if you want tips on how to make yours smell good then you need to head over to our blog on the best ways to make your laundry smell amazing:

With that done, we’d recommend giving your mattresses a quick vacuum, paying close attention to the seams where dust and crumbs are especially likely to gather. This is extra important if you’ve had guests or relatives staying who are partial to the odd midnight snack or breakfast in bed!

Bathroom clean

If you’ve had lots of guests and visitors, it’s likely your bathrooms will have been well used and will definitely benefit from a quick clean now the partying is over. For more details on how to get your bathroom nice and clean, head across to our blog here:

However, to get you going, here’s what we’d recommend as a minimum:

• Get yourself armed with the right cleaning tools and products you need to take on the job such as bathroom cleaner, bleach and scrubbing brushes
• Declutter the bathroom (especially if you’ve added some new bits and pieces in there over the festive period)
• Spray surfaces with bathroom cleaner and leave to soak in. Wipe down all the surfaces with a wet cloth. Use a sponge for any stubborn areas
• Make sure all your drains are clear and draining water well

Recycle

Finally, Christmas is a time of year that can create a lot of waste - from wrapping paper to packaging and batteries – so it’s best to recycle where you can.

Gather all the cardboard boxes from those beauty sets and toys – these can be recycled. A lot of Christmas wrapping paper is now recyclable, so pop this in your recycling bin too – if you’re unsure, just check with your local recycling centre.

If you've used some of our reusable wrap, like our hessian sheets, bows, they can be safely stored for use again next year – that's a little win!

You may also have gathered a large selection of expired batteries from the kids’ toys and Christmas lights. As mentioned earlier, don’t throw the batteries away - you should be able to recycle them. For an easy way to recycle your batteries, pop to your local wilko store, you should find a battery bank there you can drop them in to.