"We always have our bedroom windows open at night. We think it is healthier to have fresh air while we are sleeping . . . Indeed I don't think any of us could get to sleep without fresh air coming in, it makes so much more restful sleep, you know. . . We have plenty of blankets, and an eider down quilt apiece . . . We hang our things out often and air them, and we keep them very clean always."
--Grace Livingston Hill, April Gold
Does your family sleep with your windows open, Anna? I like to do it in the spring and fall when our windows are catching the breezes, but it's too cold in winter and too hot in summer for me to do it then:)!
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered about this--when I read April Gold and when I read the Rosamunde Pilcher books...my frugal nature combined with 20 degree and lower temps makes the idea daunting. Do others do this up in the Northern US?
ReplyDeleteWe did. Sleeping with the windows open all winter was the custom in my grandparents' home in the Philadelphia area, where I lived in the 1950s. At night bedroom windows were opened by at least 3 inches, and then very early in the morning, my grandfather would shut them before we got up. The idea was that fresh air is the best air for the lungs. When I was a baby, my mother also bundled me up for a nap in my carriage out on the porch in all kinds of crisp but not freezing temperatures, for the same reason. The description in April Gold is the first time I have ever heard anything about this custom.
ReplyDeleteI just read this in April Gold last night! Stayed up much to late to finish it. LOL.
ReplyDeleteI like to sleep with the windows open a crack but my husband doesn't in the winter. My parents still open their bedroom window at night.
Not to be a downer, but a rash of children stolen out of windows in our area has halted any such practice at our house. One was stolen from an upstairs window, in case you think of just opening those.
ReplyDeleteI do this, too, only it gets really cold in the daytime and the window freezes open!
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