Celebrate May Day!

May Day is one of my favorite holidays. In most parts of the country, May is when spring becomes truly apparent, with blossoming fruit trees and bulbs bursting forth in a blaze of color.  These heady days of truly warm weather give us all spring fever, a feeling of joy that we naturally want to celebrate.

People throughout the Western world celebrate May Day, and the holiday has a long history harking back to medieval times.  When I was a little girl, my mother showed me how to make May Day baskets from construction paper and took me to fill them with flowers from our garden.  Then we would sneak over to our neighbors' homes, drop the baskets on their doorsteps, ring the doorbells and run away.  When our friends opened the door, a charming handmade basket filled with flowers greeted them.

May Day is the perfect opportunity to spread the joy of spring with your friends and neighbors. Get the kids involved by helping them weave their very own May Day baskets.  Click here to see AllParenting.com's easy instructions on how kids can weave their own May Day baskets for friends and neighbors out of construction paper.

Another super cute and easy May Day basket is this May Day Cone basket from TheIdeaBox.com. After making the cone, simply fill the basket with left over Easter grass, then add fresh flowers the children pick (even dandelions will do) or if you live in a cold climate, with no fresh flowers yet, have the children make flowers using their fingers prints (as pictured).  They can also cut pictures of flowers from magazines or gardening catalogs and glue them to toothpicks and arrange in the basket. Click here for full instructions. 

Adults can get in on the May Day fun by buying a plant at the local garden center or a bouquet of flowers and leaving it on the doorstep of a friend, neighbor or elderly friend. The gesture of celebrating spring by giving a gift of nature is a wonderful tradition that unites us as a community, encouraging us to give of ourselves while cultivating an awareness of the gifts that nature has to offer.

I have one young neighbor who has been ringing my doorbell on May 1 since she was six years old. Every year I'm touched by her sweet gesture and thoughtful heart.

Hope you have a very happy May Day!

Warmly,

R O S A N N A I N C . C O M