Mayday, May baskets

I discovered, reading Meesha's blog, that Mayday is quite a big deal in Russia.

I left a comment telling how I remember Mayday, from when I was growing up in Iowa.

My mom sometimes bought tiny plastic May baskets for the occasion. Other times we'd make May baskets from construction paper, in school. We'd put wildflowers and small candies in the baskets and head to the homes of friends. It was a rural area, so Mother had to drive me around the countryside to deliver my baskets. I was to go hang the basket on the doorknob, or if that wasn't possible, leave a basket on the stoop.

Then I was to knock on the door or ring the doorbell (there were not many doorbells on farmhouses in 1949-50) and run for the car like crazy, because my friend was to come to the door, find his (or her) basket, run after me, catch me, and kiss me. I remember the panic I felt when one little boy actually did chase me; I don't recall whether he managed to kiss me.

Had the friend been a girl, it wouldn't have mattered. In those innocent times, there wasn't such a sexual connotation to a kiss as there is now, at least not to grade school children. I had never even heard of "sex". My mother sheltered me from such shocking things, until the school nurse in Kansas City finally hinted at the forbidden subject when we girls had a session with the her, in sixth grade. Even then, I didn't have a clue; all it did was confuse me. But I digress.

I recall a little girl having a birthday party on or about May 1, back in Iowa; one of the activities at that party was making May baskets of construction paper. Then we went outside to pick wildflowers to put in the little baskets.

My family moved to Kansas City in 1966, I believe, and I never heard of Mayday being celebrated after that.

I found some information online about Mayday and May baskets as I remember them, HERE and HERE.