New Years Cleaning, A Hawaii Tradition

Question: For a child, what’s worse than having to clean up your room? Answer: Having to really, really, really clean up your room every year, all before December 30th.

The New Year’s house cleaning that is an annual tradition in many households in Hawaii has it’s roots in Japanese culture. General housecleaning, called “osoji” in Japanese gives way to a year end housecleaning ritual filled with spiritual meaning called “susuharai”. This year end cleaning must be done by December 30th in order to prepare for oshogatsu (the new year).

Photo credit: iMorpheus on Flickr

The practice can best be compared to the cleaning frenzy that accompanies most pregnancies when almost-in-labor-mothers-to-be are overtaken with the sudden urge to clean the grout between the kitchen tiles–under the refrigerator–with an old toothbrush, but with a spiritual twist. This ritual cleaning has to do with scrubbing last year’s slate clean and making way for the new. This applies to ridding oneself of debt as well, although in more contemporary times this is not practiced as steadfastly.

In my family, as for many others I know, it’s a Hawaii Tradition.

What year end traditions do you practice?