Christmas dishes

In the last week I read a wonderful short and easy book called How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis LPC. It made what I thought was a very good point that needs to be made more often.

A messy house is not a moral failing.

In other words, if you can’t get on top of your laundry or keep the house dusted or wash the dishes at the end of each day, that doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means that you’re struggling to keep your house right now.

At this end of the year, we tend to have more parties, more dinners, more people in our house, and for some of us this can be really overwhelming. We think that we need to have a clean and tidy house because if we don’t we will be judged or will judge ourselves to be ‘bad’ people. After all, cleanliness is next to godliness, right?

Well … the thing is, when it talks in the Bible about the kind of person God wants me to be, the kind of people he wants his children to be, it doesn’t say much about a clean house. Instead it mentions traits like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. I’m thinking that this Christmas it might be a good aim to decorate our houses with those things.

I know that when I walk into someone’s house, the dishes on their sink don’t bother me at all. The dishes on my own sink bother me, because I know that at some stage I need to clean them, but your dishes? I have no responsibility to clean them. They don’t worry me at all. In fact, they make your house look just that little bit cosier to me. The same with the toys on the floor.

It’s not that I don’t love a beautiful house as much as the next person. It’s just that I’d prefer you to be at peace and filled with joy when you think of having me over. Not stressed and worried that you haven’t managed to clean to perfection or that you don’t have Christmas decorations up yet.

As Davis says, our houses are meant to support us, not the other way around. We are aiming for a functional house that lets us live our lives and she has many excellent tips to make your house work for you no matter your energy levels.

So maybe your house is the picture of perfection with beautiful colour coordinated Christmas decorations inside and out, or maybe you are still struggling to deal with last week’s dishes and the Christmas tree has a slim chance of getting put up on Christmas Eve and covered with the mismatched cardboard decorations your kids brought home from school, or perhaps you are not having a tree this year because the new puppy will just pull it down and destroy it. No matter where you stand in the cleanliness stakes, I pray that you will be able to feel the peace and joy, patience and kindness, gentleness and self-control that will allow you to enjoy the celebration and the people you celebrate with.

Merry Christmas! I’m taking a break now, so if you don’t want to miss me when I come back please go to ruthamos.com.au and sign up to my newsletter. You can find the podcast version of this post here. See you next year!