Coming Clean

I am in the final stages of getting ready for the Christmas arrivals.  As I think I mentioned before, there will be 16 of us here this year--the husband's entire family.  And while I'm thrilled and delighted and looking forward to it, this preparation part is the pits--especially since the arrivals are spread over a week's time, and as every houseperson knows, that's enough time for the initial 'clean' to have worn off.

I have never been the world's best, or even the world's average, housekeeper.  I can always think of something more interesting to do than clean.  I am also, by nature, a person who makes piles of things.  It all makes sense to me and I can usually extricate whatever I'm looking for when I need to.  In fact, I usually find it harder to lay my hands on something when it's put away properly, mostly because my idea of 'properly' is rather fluid, and a filing system that makes sense today probably wouldn't even enter my mind in a month. 

(I once found a Christmas present for JLO that I had purchased early and put away in a logical place until Christmas.  Too bad I didn't find it until we were moving out of that house, several years later, when she was grown and the gift was only appropriate in the humor of its rediscovery.)

When the girls were growing up, it was marginally acceptable for the house to be messy; after all, I was a mother whose priorities were to spend time with the kids rather than the cleaning supplies.  The house was never really dirty.  And I don't think I ever embarassed my family by having someone 'catch' our normal state of disarray.  But then again, I am not completely proud of the fact that if the girls saw me cleaning, the first thing they asked was "Who's coming over?"  (And unfortunately, there always was a visitor on the way...)

With just the 2 of us in this somewhat large house (I wanted the kids to be able to come home and stay with us, not in a hotel), people often ask how I take care of it.  And I usually tell them that it's not that hard to take care of.  It dawned on me recently that the reason why it's not so hard to take care of is...I don't really take care of it at all. 

I don't mind so much doing this intensive cleaning when I know at the end of it, the kids will be here.  That's definitely a reward worthy of most things.  What is driving me nuts this time is that I'm only going to have to do it again in a few days, so that it looks just as good when the next lot arrives.  Yeah, I know--you're supposed to do all this regularly.  But honestly, does anyone NOT resent that fact?  How many times can you dust the same things without thinking about what a stupid thing it is to have to be doing, over and over and over and over. 

KT says she feels gratified when her house is clean.  I can't reach that point.  I look at my finally all clean house and realize that if I'm truly going to take care of it the way it should be done, it's time to start again.  And that does nothing positive for me.  I once, years ago, told my father-in-law that my dream house was one room with a drain in the middle and all the furniture made out of pvc piping.  I still think that would be an ideal retirement home--just turn on a hose and be done with it.

On the other hand, I love the cooking and baking that all this company requires.  If I weren't running out of freezer space, that's what I'd be doing more of.  (Oh, sorry--can't waste time cleaning when there's food to be made!  We have to eat!  Haven't supplied the family with Christmas cookies in decades!  Priorities!)  But until the turkey makes way, there really is no more room at the inn.  So until then, I'm actually cleaning, and trying to remember that this time at least, it's a labor of love...