HAPPY MAY DAY!
May Day Baskets
While growing up on Main Street, my best friend Debbie and I were in the 3rd grade. We learned about May Day in school. So early May Day morning, before school Debbie and I would deliver hand picked flower hanging baskets to the neighbors doors. We ran though the neighborhood the evening before and picked baskets of flowers. We handmade the baskets from rolled up newspaper and taped a construction paper handle on. The baskets were all prepared with bouquets the night before.
Here is what we had learned at school about May Day-
May Day was also celebrated by some early European settlers of the American continent. May baskets were made. These are small baskets usually filled with flowers or treats and left at someone's doorstep. The giver rings the bell and runs away. The person receiving the basket tries to catch the fleeing giver. If they catch the person, a kiss is exchanged.
We loved sneaking up on the porches of our neighbors houses, hang the basket and then ring the doorbell and ran away as fast as we could., usually hiding behind a bush and watching the neighbor quizzically look around to see who had left the basket. Not seeing us we would giggle and move on to the next house.
Article in Jack and Jill Magazine 1960
"The job now in hand was May baskets, for it was the custom of the children to hang them on the doors of their friends the night before May-day; and the girls had agreed to supply baskets if the boys would hunt for flowers, much the harder task of the two. Jill had more leisure as well as taste and skill than the other girls, so she amused herself with making a goodly store of pretty baskets of all shapes, sizes, and colors, quite confident that they would be filled, though not a flower had shown its head except a few hardy dandelions, and here and there a small cluster of saxifrage." (a type of herb called Greater Burnet).
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