Happy May Day!

Happy May Day everyone!!  I grew up in a small down where every May first we went around and hung May Baskets on our friends.  May Baskets were a quaint little handmade gift.  You would decorate a small plastic basket (like the ones Strawberries used to come in) with tissue paper, flowers, and ribbon.  Then you would fill it with popcorn, chocolate pieces, sticks of gum, mini candy bars.  When they were all ready Mom would load us up in the car and drive us around to our friends houses.  Now, if you hung one on a boy, you had to chase him around and kiss him before he would take the basket.  Naturally it was the same if a boy brought one to you.  So the day was filled with goodies and quite a few cheek kisses.  Naturally kisses were extremely gross back then so I did a lot of running and hiding - you know those boys had cooties.

This year I made 2 May baskets, one for my Mom who (in the day) was the May Basket Queen, the other for my friend, Jennifer.  Jennifer and I have exchanged May baskets our entire lives.  I used to make dozens so it's sad to see the tradition fading away.  When my 16 and 12 year old were young, they still did the May baskets with me as their driver.  But with my 9 and 6 year old the tradition has faded away.   It's kind of sad, but on the bright side that means I get to eat the goodies that would have gone into the additional baskets we would have made.