CULLMAN – Despite all the snow and ice lately, spring is just around the corner. Flowers will begin to bloom and the grass will suddenly become a lot greener. During the spring, most people find themselves outside, enjoying the sunshine and nice weather. Others will take the opportunity to do things indoors, such as the annual tradition of spring cleaning.
Most of us can remember our mothers and grandmothers, hair up in rollers, yanking the curtains down and washing them up, scrubbing the baseboards, and polishing up the old silverware used for special occasions. Each person in the home had specific chores that had to be done during this time, things that went unnoticed the whole year until then.
Cleaning out old toys and donating them to charity was always a little bittersweet. Moving your bed and cleaning out the junk piled underneath was a nightmare and what the heck was growing on the pizza that had been hidden there for months?
As adults, do you still do as your grandma and mother did and rid the house of any and all debris imaginable? Do you have your own spring cleaning routine or just try to maintain a clean environment all year round?
The origin of the annual tradition has several explanations.
In colder regions during the wintertime, before central heating and gas fires, houses were sealed up tightly against the freezing temperatures outside.
Log or coal burning fires were on continuously in order to warm up the building.
Once the first warm day of spring came, people would open the house and clean out the accumulated dust and soot that had formed over the winter months.
Once the soot was gone, the rugs and bed sheets were taken up and hung outside and beaten. Since the rugs were up and out of the way, the floors were swept, the dust and muck went right through the open doors.
Another possible origin for the tradition of spring cleaning can be traced back to the Chinese.
They have a tradition of spring cleaning their houses to ready themselves for their New Year, which comes just after our New Year.
The idea is to rid the house of any misfortune or bad luck that has accumulated during the previous year. When the house is considered clean, the families would not clean the homes for a few days in order to welcome in the good fortune that came with the beginning of the coming New Year.
Springtime can be the best time to get things accomplished. Whether you deep clean your house every spring or use the time to play out in the yard with your children, the choice is yours. No matter how you choose to spend your time this spring, make it count.
What do you do in the spring? If you have some specific cleaning tips or techniques, we want to hear about them. Send an e-mail to sharon@cullmansense.com and tell me about them. We may feature it in an upcoming edition of CullmanSense.
