Guest Welcome Basket + Holiday Cleaning Prep

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CleanForTheHolidays #CollectiveBias

Thanksgiving has come and gone and has quickly been replaced with snow, Christmas trees and holiday parties. Oh how I love the holidays! It usually means lots of visitors either out of town or neighbors and friends. Either way, I love entertaining. One thing about entertaining is the cleaning before and afterwards- it sort of sucks. I remember my husband and my first Christmas in our childhood homes was especially special. In both of our parents’ homes we were reminded of how spotless our mother’s kept it. Anytime a visitor came over, our mother’s would enlist our help with dusting, vacuuming and our least favorite- mopping. That was mostly because we were on our hands and knees scrubbing the floors-their favorite way of hardwood floor cleaning. So, when we returned to their home, we felt like special guests, ones that they took the time to prepare their home for. That’s not to say that anytime people came over we didn’t clean but it was an extra effort to make it special for our guests. It is funny how both of our mothers prepared our room for us and left our favorite chocolates on our pillow. We loved feeling like their special guests.

As we prepared for guests on Thanksgiving and will continue to prepare for visitors this Christmas season a couple of things stand out. Cleanliness and going that extra mile for guests to truly feel at home goes a long way.  For me, having my main room, dining area and kitchen clean sets the mood for the rest of the house. As long as the counters and floors are clean, as well as clutter put away, my house feels like it is ready for visitors- even the unexpected ones. For those that know me know I love to have a clean house but don’t really love the cleaning. Funny, I know. So, I try to make cleaning quick and efficient. While I do scrub my floors on my hands and knees, I only do this a couple times a month. In doing my regular hardwood floor cleaning, I prefer using my spray mop, O-Cedar ProMist that can be found in the household cleaning aisle at Wal-Mart or online (my favorite way of shopping) after vacuuming. Unfortunately for me, I have dark floors which mean you can see every little speck. And with small children who aren’t quite coordinated enough to keep food on their plates, my floors look like I purposely crumbled anything and everything crumbly and threw it up like confetti. And then splashed milk and juice in random spots for good measure. I can’t live like that let alone allow people to see that! A lucky few have and haven’t judged me too harshly because we are still friends. Thanks, guys.

slippers | oversized cardigan (similar)

This spray mop is awesome because it is very lightweight, easy to maneuver with its swiveling head, uses a reusable microfiber pad with built in scrubbers that make scrubbing that morning’s milk easy to wipe up and you can put your own floor cleaner in the compartment and squeeze the lever to mist the floor in front of you. The reason I really love it is because my kids love it even and they want to mop three times a day. I’m okay with that.

Besides the cleaning, I think having a small welcome basket (or chocolate on their pillow) to give to overnight guests adds a little something special to the visit. I have included 2 5×7 guest welcome basket printables to include in a basket you have created.

plant pot

What should you include in a welcome basket? Besides the essentials like a toothbrush, toothpaste, a body scrubber, a pen, mints and lotion, I would include things especially for and from our new home, Seattle. So for this “So Happy You Are Here” gift basket I included: an umbrella (oh the Seattle rain!), postcards from Pike Press (a local print and design shop)and midnight snacks from Pike Place (Beecher’s Cheese, Chukkars Cherries, Smoked Salmon Box from Pure Food Fish, Simply Sinful Caramel Corn and perhaps some donuts from Mighty-O’s. I also added a “Please Knock” sign because I’m sure your guests would love a little time to veg and relax from all the fun stuff you’ve planned.

Not only does it show how happy you are that they came to visit, it shows them appreciation and love. I want my guests to feel like I have been expecting them and am so excited to have them here with us that I cleaned, and yep, I even mopped for them!