It’s the day before May and our flowering crab is in full bloom. This tree, for me, is bittersweet in its beauty. The radiant blooms and intense fragrance last only a week or so, and then—thanks be to the breezes of spring and the impermanence of all earthly things—it all goes away again until next year.
Sigh. I am confident that in heaven, anyway, I will have a corner lot and this little tree will be there—resplendent and flowering for all…well, yes, for all eternity.
Today I am thinking back to one of my favorite childhood traditions: the May Day basket. Like the long-ago petals of a forgotten dream, this commemoration has gone away, alas. Why is that? What fun it was to fill a dozen Dixie cups with candy, carefully insert the pipe cleaner handle, and drop it off on a neighbor’s doorstep. Ring the bell and run away! If you got caught (which I never did) you got a kiss, hee hee.
You also got to go back home to your own little cache of May Day baskets, which was fun fun fun for us little ones and very memorable as well.
Today, I think, we’ll make a batch of these little baskets. This means an unplanned trip to Wal-Mart because I am rarely so together as to have thought through my projects in a timely fashion. My kids don’t need to know this, though! As far as they and their little memories are concerned, they’re having fun and planning surprises, and that’s all that matters.
We’ll make one for Mary; we’ll make some for our friends.
And we’ll make one for the little girl in me.
I was just explaining this to my children at breakfast this morning and they were already planning on which houses we would go to! I never knew about the kiss part though, just to hide, that makes much more sense!
I never did that as a kid. What a fun tradition!
If we were a little closer, we’d be bumping into each other in the craft aisles!
Sounds like fun!!
One more reason to live in your neighborhood. I would stage an intense espionage campaign using camoflage and pounce for the kiss.
I am with you on the last minute thing. It was one of my first thoughts this morning. Is it really May?
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We love this tradition, too – especially putting a Marian twist to it. There was a great 4 Real thread last year on Marian May Day baskets -http://4real.thenetsmith.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=4242&KW
Mary, you are awesome for posting this link!! I did a search at Real Learning while I was writing this and didn’t come up with anything. [Granted, it was a quick search. 😉 ] Now we have time to add a beautiful Blessed Mother touch to all our baskets!
our white flowering crabs started to bloom early – then it froze, so we only get to enjoy the beauty of the pink flowering crab this year…and for such a short time! we got 2 baskets, but didn’t plan ahead to give any this year; will have to remember this next year!