May Day!

Months ago I was reading a chapter book with Marlee and there was a little blurb about a girl making May Day baskets.  Marlee wanted to learn a little more about this day and those baskets. 

So we referred to our favorite book of holidays "Festivals, Family, and Food".  It's a wonderful book that explains holidays that nobody really celebrates anymore...except for us, it seems.  <insert eye roll here!!> Click here to peek at the book.

Marlee and her bud Hayden put a lot of work into this project the past few weeks. The baskets were to be filled with spring flowers (ahem, weeds), but pretty yellow and purple all the same.  They made little May Day greeting cards and slipped a few pieces of candy in each one.

 

We found some old baskets at a thrift store for 20 cents each.  When we were short a few baskets, the girls did not lack in creativity on how to make additional baskets!

 

 

 

 

According to tradition, the baskets are to be hung on friends' doorknobs at dawn.  The basket is meant to be a surprise, so our friends were not supposed to know who delivered the baskets.

 

The big morning arrived.  We left the house at 6:10(!!), in our PJs of course, to tiptoe through the yards of friends to deliver these pleasant surprises.

 

 

 







There was quite a stir by the time the neighborhood kids loaded the bus that morning.  All kinds of musings and theories were floating around.  It seems not only the givers, but also the receivers got a little lesson about May Day.