I know, it’s less than a week until Pesach (Passover) and I haven’t posted anything about my preparations!
For some reason, people seem to assume that I’ve already finished or am close to it. Nothing could be further from the truth!!
This year I decided to do things a bit differently than in the past. We’re now in a smaller living space than in the past, and thanks to having moved overseas seven months ago, have a lot less stuff than we used to. I always try to keep Pesach preparations reasonable so that the spirit of the holiday doesn’t get lost in the unending drudgery of cleaning, and this year that means that we are doing our cleaning significantly later than we have in the past.
Here’s this year’s schedule – a schedule for last minute-ers! :):
– week of March 25 – I asked the kids to clean their rooms sometime between Mar. 25 – 30, ideally at the beginning of the week (though everyone didn’t choose to follow this suggestion :)) so that they would be able to enjoy being able to spend the rest of the week relaxing.
Last week I also somewhat cleaned the enclosed laundry porch and main bathroom.
– Sunday April 1 –
- clean master bedroom/bedroom/office
- finish cleaning laundry porch (this is my ‘pantry’ so it’s more about organization than cleaning)
– Monday April 2 – go to Jerusalem for the day; I hope to get some clothing shopping done after technical business is finished since I have no maternity clothing and at 5.5 months I think it would be a good thing to have. 🙂
– Tuesday April 3 –
- will stop using kitchen sink in the evening
– Wednesday April 4 – the main cleaning day for the kitchen and salon (living room/dining room combo). I’m planning to assign all of the older kids one big job each. This will include:
- clean living room/dining room, couches
- cover dining room table, wipe down chairs
- clean stove and oven, kasher
- clean refrigerator
- wipe down cabinets, line those we’ll use for Pesach
In the evening when the littles are asleep, we’ll kasher the countertops. Usually at this point, we would unpack the Pesach dishes, but I left them behind with the intent to have them sent on someone’s lift. They have yet to leave the US, so I’ll be buying disposable dishes and a few basic pots/cooking implements.
Thursday April 5 –
- change sheets in all bedrooms
- do all laundry
- shop for Pesach food
- start cooking for Pesach (being in Israel means that we will only have one seder instead of two, so while I usually like to have several days before Pesach to cook in advance and freeze food, and everything has to be ready accordingly, this year it would be overkill)
Friday April 6 – erev Pesach –
- make sure everything is ready for the seder
- have everyone take a long nap midday so they’ll be able to enjoy the seder that night
And that’s it!
Avivah
It must be so exciting to have your seder in Israel this year!
What’s your menu?
Lisa, I’m happy to have my cleaning schedule in place – I haven’t yet gotten my menu planned out! 🙂
Yeah, just rub it in that you are only having to make one seder! 😉
Last year I mentioned that I was sad knowing that it was our last time having two sedarim – we love having two seders!
But there’s no question that having one instead simplifies things.
What age is big for the big cleaning jobs?
I also wondered about your menu, and especially what you do during pesach for non-meat/non-dairy main courses.
Finally, you mentioned how much simpler it is with less stuff. Pesach aside, how has that. Pesach aside, how has that been for you all?
Happy and kosher Pesach!
The age for big cleaning jobs seems to go up every year as the kids get older! When the oldest three were 9/11/12, they did a lot of the big cleaning with me.
For the purposes of cleaning, I guess that the kids ages 9/11/13/15/17/18 will each get jobs; the younger ones will get the easier jobs like cleaning the chairs and covering the table.
I don’t make a menu until I’ve done my shopping – this is the opposite of what most people do! That’s because I don’t know what will be a good price until I buy it. So I don’t yet have a menu, but I’ll try to post it once I make it up.
And I’ll also try to post an answer in an individual post about having less stuff.
It’s interesting how by having the same goal as you of not losing sight of the spirit of chag with all the technical aspects involved make me do the exact opposite schedule wise! I “have” to be organized early and actually start slowly right after Purim. I find by working slowly I have ;ess stress, and more time to focus on the spiritual part of pesach (the rational being that I’m more conscious of it approaching and am more likely to open a book …)
Also, my real helper being my 7 year daughter, and having a 1 year old, I like to make sure I have “spare days” just in case we have a “mommy’s hands only day”(like yesterday), esp. with my husband being busier than ever this week!
Enjoy your preparations. I feel there is something satisfying in seeing the house ready for Pesach.
Have a wonderful Chag!
Until this year, I would have described my schedule exactly like yours! In our case, I’m still working slowly – bedrooms last week, everything else this week – it just sounds stressful doing everything at one time!
I strongly agree with you about being spiritually ready for the holiday as well.
Chag sameach!
Sounds almost relaxing…hope your clothing trip was successful.
Hatzlacha with all the preparations!
I bought R’ Shimshon Pinkus’s hagadah Tiferes Shimshon 8 years ago and every year I read some part of it in preparation….I’m learning little bits about dayeinu this year. The stuff in there is not Pesach related necessarily but all encompassing hashkafah of Yiddishkeit and it really spiritually energizes me.
(I also like that since the hagadah has so much stuff in it, I have a peirush on benching for example…hallel, etc so it really is stuff that is always applicable.)