Welcome back to Oakville Maids! It’s Thanksgiving Monday, the turkey is probably already in, and the house doesn’t need to be perfect. A few Thanksgiving cleaning tips, done in the right order, will honestly carry you through the whole afternoon.
We know Thanksgiving can be a really special and meaningful day. We get to see our family, spend quality time with them, and share memories. However, it can be a stressful day as well.
That’s why we’re giving you tips today to keep up with cleaning today as much as you can while still being present in the moment. Let’s read some tips on how to start the day on the right foot.
Start with an empty dishwasher and an empty sink
This one step saves more time than anything else on the list. Try running and unloading the dishwasher before you start the sides, even if it’s only half full. That way every bowl, whisk and measuring cup has somewhere to go the second you’re done with it.
Even if it’s challenging, we always recommend cooking and cleaning at the same time. We understand cooking is stressful and demands a lot of attention, so we know you’re probably not going to handwash with one hand and cook with the other hand.
However, there’s a trick to keep your sink and dishwasher as empty as possible:
Fill one side of the sink with hot water and a good squirt of Dawn. Anything too big for the dishwasher goes in to soak right away, like the roasting rack or the potato masher. Mashed potato dries like cement in about 20 minutes. A soaked masher rinses clean in 10 seconds.
Keep a roll of paper towels and a clean dish towel by the stove too. Wipe off any drips on the cooktop while they’re fresh. If you leave them as is, they “bake” on the surface and it’s going to be harder to remove it.
The 15-minute guest bathroom reset
After the dining room, the powder room is the space your guests see most. Give it 15 minutes, about an hour before people arrive. Wipe the sink, faucet and mirror, swish the bowl, then run a disinfecting wipe over the seat and the flush handle.
Oakville’s hard water leaves white spots on chrome fast. A quick buff with a dry microfibre cloth genuinely makes a bigger difference than you’d expect. It’s the first thing our Oakville house cleaning crews do in every bathroom, holiday or not.
Then set out a fresh hand towel, put a spare roll where people can actually find it and empty the little bin. That last step gets forgotten in almost every home before a holiday.
More Thanksgiving Cleaning Tips for the Table and the Front Door
Lay a plastic liner or a folded flat sheet under your nice tablecloth. Cranberry sauce and gravy soak straight through linen, and the liner protects the wood underneath. If you’re lighting taper candles, maybe set them on drip trays. Wax on a tablecloth comes out, but it’s a whole project.
October here means wet leaves on every boot. One family we clean for in Burlington keeps a second mat inside the door and an old bath towel beside it for shoes. Their hallway floor survives every holiday, and nobody tracks maple leaves onto the living room rug.
Clear One Landing Zone for Leftovers
Before dinner, take five minutes to clear one fridge shelf and stack empty containers on the counter. When the meal winds down, leftovers go straight into containers and straight into the fridge.
Health Canada advises not leaving cooked food out for more than two hours, and having containers ready is what actually makes that happen.
Add a roll of masking tape and a marker. Label what’s going home with whom, and you skip the “whose container is this” texts next week.
What to Skip Today
Don’t mop while the oven is on and people are coming in and out. You’ll just mop twice. Don’t spray bleach anywhere near food prep. And don’t start on the baseboards you suddenly noticed at 2 p.m., because nobody else will look at them. If they still bother you next week, that’s what a proper deep cleaning is for.
The house only has to work for one afternoon. Keep the sink empty, the bathroom fresh and the leftovers moving, and tomorrow’s cleanup will be a lot smaller than you think. We’ll have a full post-holiday cleanup guide on the blog this week, so stay tuned.
Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Oakville Maids!