May Day

Plopping the playdough into jars.

The baskets, waiting to be delivered.

Running a basket to Fernie and Frida's apartment

Besides being the National Day of Prayer (on your knees ladies!) today is also May Day. I'm not sure exactly where the traditions of May Day got started, but I remember making little construction paper baskets as a child and delivering them to a few neighbors, ringing the doorbell and running away. As I got older I often included tracts and Christian magazines in the baskets for my unsaved neighbors and relatives. One man caught my brother and I out the back door and was fuming with us. We didn't understand why he was so mad until we realized he hadn't seen the basket and had thought we were just ringing the doorbell and running away for fun. He went back, found his basket, and kept thanking us every time he saw us for about the next year!



I don't do something for May Day every year but I decided that it would be fun for Ali to help me make up some baskets to bless her playmates with. She had fun with every aspect of it, from measuring ingredients and stirring the homemade playdough (Kristin's recipe), to making baskets, filling them, and delivering them (or watching me deliver them and run away after I rang the doorbell).



What was in our baskets? Each child received a little jar of homemade playdough (I have a huge stash of baby food jars I keep and save for crafts or making my own baby food). We tossed in a few pieces of candy, a couple of tiny boxes of raisins, and a sidewalk chalk for each child. Nothing fancy but enough to brighten a little kid's day!