Thanksgiving Dinner Clean-Up Tips And Tricks

Thanksgiving Dinner is over and the kids are draped over couches and chairs in a turkey-induced coma watching football on the TV. The dishes are piled high and if you are anything like my family the minute you start to put things away everyone begins to drag themselves back into the kitchen for round 2. It’s been a blessed time filled with family but like most good things, they must come to an end, it’s time to clean up before everyone (like a hoard of zombies) begins to mob the kitchen for more Brazilians, er….. I mean food, (sorry wrong holiday). But every year it seems like it gets harder and harder to clean the kitchen and dishes and other things that need to be done to get the house back into a manageable state. Don’t worry we have a few tips and tricks to help you out. So let’s start in the kitchen.

Kitchen

First, let’s start with the stove. If you are like me, cooking is a family affair, it’s kinetic and alive, people are dodging in and out of each other moving from countertop to stove to refrigerator to stove again. So after the nuptials of food to bellies, the kitchen is left like a bomb scare. Everything is left still in its chaotic state. Food caked onto the stove the pots and pans tossed like a grenade into the sink to sit until the Police Chief calls the “All Clear.”

1. So first things first, the dried baked food to the stove. Take a wet soapy dish rag and lay it on the stove where you have dried on food and let it lay there for 5 minutes before scrubbing. This will dramatically decrease the amount of energy that you put into scrubbing the stove. While the dish rag sits you can tend to some of the dishes piled up in the sink.

2. Paper plates are a lifesaver but some might call this Thanksgiving Dinner heresy, in my family we have begun to use paper plates because when you pack 75 people into a small room of the house, once everyone is in place it has a strong resemblance to the inside of a clown car so the paper has just become easier.

3. Fill Pots and Pans with Hot water and let them sit for 5 minutes before the arduous task of scrubbing this will dramatically decrease the amount of time cleaning each pot and pan. Now it’s time for the table cloths, which now look like the shroud of Turin but unlike those stains, we want these removed. So how do you remove gravy and cranberry or wine stains from, cotton or silk or linen? We have just the trick, so read on.

Berry or Wine Stains

Before you wash your tablecloth with wine or berry stains, First boil some hot water and then pour that over the stains until they disappear, but remember to remove your hand from underneath the stain first, that can hurt something fierce.

Cotton

You can clean cotton tablecloths in the washer and dryer. Wash them in a cool-water cycle. Don’t use bleach unless necessary, and make sure it’s colourfast (oxygen) bleach if the tablecloth isn’t white. Run the dryer on low heat and remember to remove the cotton tablecloth as soon as the cycle finishes.

Silk

Silk tablecloths have the same properties as other “delicates.” Unless they are so heavily soiled that hand washing would be ineffective, you should wash them by hand. Do not use high-powered detergent; use a mild cleaner instead. Shampoo works very well if the tablecloth isn’t badly soiled. If hand washing doesn’t work, wash on the gentle cycle in cold water. For best results, wash a silk tablecloth in an “in-the-washing-machine bag.” If you use the washing machine, use a detergent specifically for delicates. Line dry silk, if possible, or use the “fluff” setting on the dryer, which uses no actual heat.

Linen

Linens should be treated with oxygen-based bleach before washing. Never use chlorine bleach on linens. The chlorine will react with the flaxen fibres and create a yellow colour instead of linen’s usual pure white. After treating with an oxygen-based colourfast bleach, wash normally in a gentle cycle. If the stains are stubborn and won’t come out, you can treat them with an enzyme-based cleaner, such as Shout®. Never put linen in the dryer. Hang it on the line instead. Not only will this make the tablecloth smell fresh, but it will also prevent slight burning stains from the dryer.

If you’re not comfortable doing your tablecloth cleaning after Thanksgiving, then a professional dry cleaning service would be able to do the job.

We hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving Day spent with family and friends from all of us at Jim Morgan’s Fine Dry Cleaning.