Guests are Coming!
As Thanksgiving rears its food feast gathering head, one must prepare for all the guests arriving. That means cleaning tasks that usually happen throughout a week’s agenda become priorities for the few days or a day before the big event.
That means the bathrooms must be cleaned and sanitized. Each house’s rooms must be dusted and vacuumed, beds made in perfect order, dishes washed, dried, and out of sight, and floral arrangements purchased and placed around the house to acknowledge the festive event. We must ensure the windows are cleaned, all toys are put in their proper bins, and couches and chairs are cleared of all papers, magazines, and TV remotes.
The house must be pristine and sterilized for the oncoming guests. Should a guest wander into any room carelessly, you would expect them to comment on your beautiful home.
You want to foster the image that your house always looks this way.
WHY DO YOU DO THIS?
This charade does not fool them. They know because they did the same preparation the last time you were a guest in their house. Trust me, their kids have been at your house and seen it exactly how it usually is. Don’t think this is not reported back to their parents.
Their parents know when they drop their kids off. You may not invite the parents in, but they can see enough from the doorway.
I understand you want to put on a good show for a festive occasion like Thanksgiving. And it feels good when the house looks clean and well-managed, which it does over a week. So, I’ll give you a break concerning large festive gatherings. However, try not to go too overboard.
In my family gatherings, we shut rooms down so guests can’t enter. That limits the number of rooms that had to be cleaned. We also took a room that may not have been the cleanest and dumped all the visitors’ coats on the bed in that room, claiming we didn’t have enough closet space or hangers. A lot of stuff can be hidden under a pile of coats, and when there is a bed in a room piled with coats, guests don’t pay much attention to magazines left on chairs, TV remotes, or whether or not the bed has even been made.
So there might be an excuse for these kinds of events. However, how about the other times when your mom says, “My friend Hilda is coming over this afternoon. Make sure everything is cleaned up.”
Was my mom planning an Open House in preparation for selling the house or renting your room and giving a tour?
“Mom, why would Hilda go into my room?” you ask.
“Just clean your room, and while you’re at it, clean the bathroom upstairs and put away the dishes in the kitchen sink.”
It doesn’t make sense. Hilda knows you. Aunt Lucy knows us. Everyone in our frickin’ neighborhood knows you and has been in this house before. They’ve seen the house unkempt and looking just like their house. Why do we have to put on a show?
If we’re going to go to all that trouble every time someone visits us, I hope you include a message to guests about having to wear formal clothes and white gloves on the invitation. You certainly don’t want to get anything dirty after you’ve put all this effort into prepping the house.
And what happens with unexpected guests or drop-ins?
“Excuse me, you’ll just have to wait outside for a few hours while we get the house ready.”
Why can’t we just be who we are? Act normally. Have our house look normal; lived in. It would be so much easier. It’s not like we never clean it up.
Well, except for my room and my desk. But no one ever goes in there anyway.
