Monday, April 29, 2013

Lets Get Personal: Lesser Known Holiday Celebration

 
There are so many holidays that are celebrated in the US, especially since the country is a 'Melting Pot' there are traditions brought from all different countries.  I know around here St. Joseph's day is a big celebration, I am still not sure what it is but my boss always brings me a cream filled pastry.  One of the holidays that my family always celebrated has been May Day.
 
May Day is celebrated in a variety of ways and means something slightly different in all the corners of the globe, but to my family (and my home town) it means baskets!  Each year on May Day it has been a tradition to put together a basket of goodies, usually in our case growing up it was healthy snacks like fruits and juices. We would then put the basket on the door step of a friend's house, ring the bell and run like nuts because if we got caught we got kissed.  We ended up turning it into a town wide mayhem for a while, since my 4-H club started selling May Day baskets as a fund raiser.
 
Now I asked my mom once why we did this and (now I don't know how true any of this is but its what she told me) she told me that it was a celebration of spring and also a pagan celebration for the fertility gods. That the baskets were traditional left at a love interest's door step and that is why the kiss is exchanged if caught (you would know if the person felt the same if they chased you down and kissed you).  Now of course we were just kids so we didn't have love interests but it was still a lot of fun.
 
Now that I am older, I love making May Day baskets for a few of my friends and of course my Hubby.  I get a lot of funny looks when I talk about it around here but maybe I can make it popular and celebrated out here too someday.  For now I am just enjoying making baskets for my loved ones (of course Munchkin's basket is getting a little out of control lol).
 
 
So do you celebrate May Day? What do you do for the holiday? Or do you have a different lesser known holiday that you celebrate?

No comments:

Post a Comment