A Clean Kitchen for the Holidays

By Matt Basheda

Shutterstock/Justin Krug

Start this holiday season out right with a clean kitchen. It’s a tough job, but you’ll be spending more time in your kitchen over the next couple months, and a reorganized space will help you feel better about cooking.

Begin with the surfaces, and then dig deep—not the other way around. Clean your counters and your sink, then the outside of appliances. Don’t overlook spaces like the top of the refrigerator and cupboard handles that might have food residue on them. When you keep the surface clean, you always feel you’re very close to total cleanliness. Messy counters don’t lead to holiday cheer.

For Suzan Meredith, co-owner of Redecorate Today, preparing your kitchen for the holiday season is less about reorganizing than it is about rethinking your kitchen as a whole.

“Your pantry looks different in the winter time than in the summer time just because of what you do eat,” she says.

Acknowledge the culinary differences in the seasons. Get rid of that half-eaten box of cold cereal still there from August and replace it with oatmeal.

No matter what, you’ve got to commit to throwing things away. You can’t move on without the willingness to trash and never look back.

Strip the fridge down completely to clean it out. Remove all drawers and shelves. Apply the same rules for the pantry, and when in doubt, just throw it away. And be content with replacing summery fruits and salads with meats and cheeses.

For cluttered drawers that seem to have one of everything—spatulas, peelers, serving spoons and so on—split up the objects. Have a small vase or something similar near your stove for the things you use most, and fill your drawers with organizing trays for the rest.

Don’t leave your kitchen out of the holiday decorating plans, either. Hang festive wreaths in the windows, and keep your table centerpiece seasonal.

“A lot of times people have a place to display the Christmas cards that they’ve received,” says Meredith. “That’s often in the kitchen, and it can be on a wall or on a backboard.”

Standing cards up on counters can be a minor disaster, with cards constantly falling over and onto your spotless kitchen floor.

Tags: clean, design, holidays, home, kitchen, Northern Virginia, Northern Virginia Magazine, NoVA, redecorate today, suzan meredith