I'm dreaming of a clean Christmas

In case you didn't know, living in a house with four people ups your laundry considerably. Especially when one person works on a muddy construction site, one person tends to spill whatever they're eating on their shirt, one person manages to get the majority of whatever craft they're doing onto their shirt, and one person is relatively good about keeping their clothes clean, but hey, everyone needs clean socks and underwear. FYI, in case you think I'm tooting my own horn, I'm not the "relatively good" one.

Anyway, our room looked like a textile mill exploded in it. There was a mountain of clean clothes on the floor at the bottom of our bed, and our closet was chock full of more piles of clothes. There was a huge box of shoes that I hadn't unpacked (instead, I would just root through to find the pair I wanted to wear that day - klassy, I know) and a few other piles of stuff that hadn't been unpacked yet. I can't believe I'm even telling you this.

So Sunday morning, Chris hauled all of the clean clothes into the living room, and I watched all my TiVoed shows while I folded and folded and folded. We spent the entire day cleaning and folding and unpacking and sorting and getting rid of stuff, until by the evening, our bedroom was totally clean, our closet was organized, and it looks like tidy people live there, instead of the mess that was. And lest you think it took us all day to just clean one room, the rest of the house is also clean. Ahem. Also, as a side note, I'd like to thank TiVo for its complete and total awesomeness. I never have to miss a show ever again. Ever. Everyone needs TiVo.

My point (and I do have one) is that I'm really glad we got all of the tidying up done, because for the first time ever, I'm hosting Christmas. This means my dad, my brother, and my mom. In case you haven't met my mom, let me just tell you that she is known as either Ninja Mom or the Tidy Fairy. When I used to live at home, I lived in our basement, with my own living room and t.v. and everything. I swear, Ninja Mom would silently hang from the ceiling, waiting for me to finish my drink. Because I'd walk away, and when I came back, my glass would be gone. And when I lived in my own house, my mom would feed the cats, and I'd come home to a cleaner house than when I left. Clearly the Tidy Fairy had come by. Of course, I had to clean my house before I left so that I wouldn't have to hear about what a slob I am. But it was worth it to have the tupperware cabinet totally organized.

Lest you think I'm like Pigpen, I'm not. It's just that my mom is serious about a clean house. She doesn't have one of those pesky "outside of the home" jobs, and so our house has always been super clean. Which I totally appreciate, but sometimes I wish she had worked outside of the home so that she would actually understand what it's like to work 10 or 12 hours with people who need stuff RIGHT NOW and then come home to children who need stuff RIGHT NOW and so it would be logical why I can't muster up some righteous indignation at that dust on the side table and leap to action right that second.

I'm not complaining, not at all. I love my mom, and I appreciate that we grew up in a clean house and were expected to take care of our own spaces, because I learned how to be a good housekeeper. As an aside, I wish I had also learned how to iron like my mom does, because she can perfectly crease a pair of pants and I can't iron for shit (sometimes I still purposely show up at her house to go somewhere nice with a wrinkly shirt so that she'll make me take it off and she'll iron it perfectly for me - I can't believe I'm admitting that either), but that's neither here nor there.

My point (and maybe not my original one, but I've kind of lost track at this point) is that we still have some tidying up to do before Saturday. Why Saturday? Because that's when the cleaning lady is coming. I can't have the Tidy Fairy ruining Christmas by commenting on any sort of lack of housekeeping ("This house is just too big for you to take care of") and so I'm going to nip that in the bud by pretending that Chris and I cleaned the house in all of our FREE TIME. Chris thinks she might be suspicious, but oh well. I'm going to act innocent and pretend that it was all just a Christmas Miracle.