Because I grew up making and delivering May Day Baskets, I just assumed everyone knew what May Day was all about. Seems from many of your comments on my Gratituesday post that May Day is new to many of you! Here, let me share the fun with you…
The way we’ve always celebrated the first day of May is to create some sort of basket, fill it with flowers or goodies, then deliver the basket to someone’s porch. Tradition holds that you are to “sneak” the basket up to the house, set it down, ring the doorbell, and run away without the recipient catching you! It’s a fun way to celebrate spring and a great way to bless others. We’ve never been very good at the “sneaking” part, but it sure is fun to try!
I can’t believe how excited our three younger boys were this year as they were working on this project. (Our oldest may have been excited also, if he wasn’t so busy trying to finish his freshman year of high school. That kid has been working SO hard this year on Biology and Algebra!)
I pulled each boy into the kitchen with me separately to make a treat for the baskets. This made for some great one-on-one time, plus made life less hectic in the kitchen. Justus decided to make Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. (He usually wears glasses, but his are broken right now – par for the course when you have an active 12 year old boy. If you look at his right eye there, you can see that not only did his glasses get broken, he has a nice injury to brag about too.)
He did a beautiful job on the cookies…
Malachi helped me make some mini Banana Muffins…while listening to DC Talk. ;)
One recipe made 36 mini muffins, baked at 400° for about 15 minutes (in case you were wondering how to adapt the Banana Muffin recipe).
Elias helped me make a big batch of Trail Mix, then all the boys set to work making cards to include in the baskets.
In the meantime, I packaged up all the treats.
The “baskets” we used were actually just recycled ice cream buckets my dad had given me. This worked perfectly!
And now, we are heading out to deliver the goodies. I believe I am just about to witness my sons launching themselves off of our friends’ porches – which I’m sure they will do in absolute silence so as to keep our May Day delivery a big surprise. ;)
