One-Yard Wonders projects

Monday, April 30, 2012

Happy May Day!

I LOVED May Day as a kid. My mom always popped a huge bowl of popcorn and bought a big bag of M&Ms. After school, we'd decorate plastic cups with stickers and pipe-cleaner handles and fill them with popcorn and candy. Sometimes we added a sprig of lilacs. Then we carefully put our creations in some cake pans to carry them to the car and piled in to deliver them to friends and relatives.

Invariably, the cake pans were not high enough for the cups and the May baskets fell over at least once during the car ride, spilling all the popcorn out. We scooped it back up and tried to hang on to them as we bumped down gravel roads. We always delivered May baskets to our grandparents, our great aunt and great uncle, and to a few of our friends who lived in the country.

The best part of May Day was leaving your basket on someone's doorstep and not telling them it was from you. It was so exciting to sneak up, leave the basket and race back to the car so they wouldn't see you. And there were usually a few May baskets waiting in our porch when we returned home.

The best May basket I ever received was a little potted flower from my friend Steve Squires. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Little did I know that May Day traditions began with leaving nosegays on people's door knobs. I have no idea when the popcorn tradition started or who started it, but that's how we made our May baskets.

I've often regretted that my children will never experience May Day like I did. We could deliver May baskets to the weirdos in our neighborhood, but, well, we're not going to. However, this year I am excited because we are going to Nevada to watch my nephew Kael's baseball game tomorrow so the boys can deliver May baskets to their grandparents, uncle and cousins!

I didn't have any plastic cups, but I do have a huge collection of plastic containers with lids. So Mazy decorated some of those tonight with stickers. Tomorrow I'll pop some popcorn, divvy up the remaining Easter candy and fill our May baskets! The lidded containers will be a huge improvement for car travel.

It won't be as fun as when I was a kid, but at least they will get to experience the excitement of May Day!

No comments:

Post a Comment