May Day

May Day was an exciting holiday when I was in elementary school.

We lived in a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone. You played outside until it was dark and then came home. Everyone watched out for everyone else's kids. The neighbors enjoyed getting together and having adult parties and kid parties. May Day was special because anyone who wanted to play along put their name into the "hat". Your family was given another family's name secretly. Sometime between the night of the 30th of April and the beginning of May 1st you were to leave a basket of flowers on your specific neighbor's doorstep. The catch was, you could not be seen!

The whole sense of sneaking around really appealed to me. The year I remember specifically, is the year we had the Rosenfields. There's was the perfect house because I could sneak through a bunch of neighbors' backyards to get to their back door. I was winded and proud by the time I got home because NO ONE HAD SEEN ME!

The funny thing is I can't remember what any of the baskets of flowers looked like that we received or gave away. I just loved the tradition of giving (secretly) a basket of flowers to the neighbors.

At school we would have a May pole and we would dance around it with it's colorful streamers.

Maybe because it was spring and we had had enough of winter and summer was in site is why I have such fond memories of a holiday that has seemingly been forgotten these days. A couple of years ago, I introduced the girls to the dropping flowers at peoples' houses. They too, loved the sneakiness of it all.

We didn't have time this morning, but maybe we can be sneaky this afternoon and drop off a few flowers. We'll have to wear our camo gear because it is a little harder to sneak in broad daylight.

May you all find a little taste of spring on your doorstep today! If not, pretend I dropped these off for you!