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On Wednesday of last week, my husband Richie and I took the day off to clean the house. The number of days until Christmas has now replaced the number of weeks, so it’s important to actually start crossing things off the to-do list. We are hosting Christmas Eve in our house this year and although some family are away and the crowd will be smaller, they still need to be able to find the dining room – so cleaning was a necessity.
If I am honest, the house was not the tidiest in advance of the arrival of my sister and her four children from Australian back in September, but things had deteriorated further. The extra five people in the house for a month added a certain amount of what we can call disorganisation, as rooms were shared and clothes were not hung up. Some of this disorganisation lingered after they departed.
Before I started this new job in August, I had two areas to tidy up – firstly the office needed to be reorganised so that I would have a clear and clean workspace at home should it be required. Secondly, my wardrobe. I went through the wardrobe with military precision, following a tactic of ‘if it hasn’t been worn, for whatever reason, in a year, recycle it’. And I was pretty vicious. I admit that this process gave me an enormous sense of satisfaction, but also triggered some realisations. Firstly, that the 18 years that separate me from my sister, Alison, who I tried to donate some of these fabulous items to, really do separate us.
“That’s lovely on you but I wouldn’t wear it,” sounded suspiciously more like: “Oh help me, you are so old.” I’ll appease myself with the fact that she is only 20. So after all my donation efforts, most items ended up in the charity bin.
The second thing was that I had a lot of clothes that I have only worn a small number of times. The fast-fashion phenomenon is a real thing and at Christmas I suppose we are all more likely to buy something sparkly or novelty that will only get the one outing and then end up in the back of the wardrobe until next year. Just as much as food waste, cheap clothing with a quick turnover encourages people to keep buying and has been highlighted as a serious environmental issue. There has been a shift in EU policy towards a circular economy, where the value of products is maintained in the economy for as long as possible.
I am very lucky that I have a number of good friends with girls slightly older than my own two and we get a bag of clothes a few times a year – a small step, but a step nonetheless towards reducing waste. However, we had an enormous amount of clothes that wouldn’t fit the girls any more or (becoming more precocious with age) they won’t wear again. The clear-out was good for the soul and I hope that the donated items will serve some other little girls well as the cold sets in.
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