It is 7 a.m. and your children look outside and see 3 inches of fresh powder covering the ground. The best part of it is, it’s Saturday and they can play in it all day long. You get the box of snow clothes out and they start to bundle up. A few hours later they return to the house to warm up. You turn the corner and all you see is hats, gloves, jackets and shoes strewn about the family room. Here is the dilemma, the clothing needs to dry before being put away, yet you don’t want your family room looking like a winter clothing clearance sale in the process!
Jackets and boots. The first part is easy, the shoes can be nicely lined up either right inside or outside the front door. Let the children know that they can’t come one step into the house without removing the dirty snowy shoes from off of their feet. This will definitely keep the carpets nice too. Jackets are the other things that can be removed right away. Install some hooks right by the front door, or designate some hangers in the front closet strictly to the winter coats. They will dry much more quickly if they are hung.
Gloves, scarves and hats. Next we get into the trickier territory. Gloves, scarves and hats (sometimes even socks) will be pretty soaked from a day of playing in the snow. The scarves can be hung on top of or draped around the jackets. The gloves and hats can be placed on a shoe rack near the front door for drying. The nature of the standing shoe rack will give the items the most circulated air to help them dry quicker.
Snow pants and bibs. If your child went out in jeans, chances are VERY high that their pants are soaked. For this I would just throw the pants in the dryer. If they do have some snow pants, they are less likely to be very wet, but could use a bit of drying off. If your jackets are hanging in a closet, I would buy some pant hangers and just hang them up there with the jackets. If you are going the hook route you can just attach the pants to the hook next to the jacket.
After everything is dried and the children are getting ready for bed it’s time to put away the snow clothes for good (or at least until the next day). Each child should have a plastic storage bag or bin container dedicated for their snow gear that can contain their hat, scarf and gloves. This way if one child is going out to play they will not end up throwing everyone else’s clothing all over the floor. Everything besides the jacket can go back into the snow clothes bin, to be worn another wonderful snowy day.