It’s that time of year again. It seems to come around so fast and is it me or does it seem to last a lot longer? Yes I am in fact talking about Christmas.
Now in our house we have many traditions. Decorations go up on the first Saturday in December and we must buy at least one new Christmas ornament every year. The kids are very particular about what goes on the tree and, unlike the regular Facebook posts I see from some people about their trees needing re-doing, I have to say that this year was the first year that needed no adjustment! Other traditions in our house include Pass the Parcel for Christmas day, which takes the whole of December to prepare for, and the dog has to have a present as well.
Now these are all fairly standard traditions but then I have a few special ones of my own! The cleaning ones! I finally get to the point in December where I have enough of piles of paper, things that just need to go somewhere, rather than sitting in the middle of the lounge, and the freezer simply has to be emptied! Now I have got increasingly clever as the years have gone by having previously been known to throw away a shameful amount of food and this years “BIG DEFROST” was undertaken with military precision. It all began on Saturday morning with a concerted effort to drag myself from my very comfortable bed and just get on with it.
Armed with hairdryer, towels, a bowl and a scraper off I went! Now this is where I had got a bit wiser and this time I had actually planned in advance ensuring that everything from the freezer had been used! There was of course the obligatory ice pop, the half used bag of parsnips and a couple of frozen meals that had been there for longer than they should but overall I was pleased with this year’s preparation.
Off went the freezer and on went the hairdryer. I wasn’t messing around. My mum used to put a bowl of hot water in and shut the fridge! I didn’t have time for that – I needed to re-stock! So after what seemed like 3 days of aiming my hairdryer at the very stubborn ice, the satisfying noise of falling ice started to occur. All I kept thinking about was global warming and how I should be environmentally friendly whilst being riddled with guilt at the electricity I was wasting. Now I probably should have mentioned this but my freezer had got so full of ice (my husband keeps turning it up despite my protests) that it was only just closing so this was no mean feat and even my 2000 watt hairdryer was struggling. Eventually though between mopping up the falling ice and water and regular emptying the bowl that was catching most of the falling water, the last stubborn piece fell.
Now to clean the drawers and seals. I always end up covered in more water than came out of the freezer at this point because I try and clean the drawers over the sink with soapy water and rinse them out. Now at the rinse point the mixer tap seems to develop a mind of its own and the outcome is a very wet me! This year was no exception – come on I had done well to get the freezer empty!
The satisfaction was amazing – my freezer was clean and I could finally stock up on ice-cream oh and of course vegetables! Now the feeling of satisfaction was only temporary of course. I may have felt like Super Mum with everything under control but then it hit me – I HAVE TO AND CLEAN THE OVEN NOW!
Leave a Comment