May Day Memories

Mom dragged her special cardboard box out of the closet and we sorted through the construction paper, gift wrap, glitter, paper lace, and other decorations stored for festive occasions. This was always an exciting day for Mom and her little chicklets.

Mom was blessed with a creativity and flair that went far beyond the every day. Grandma always said about her, "Verla Mae could take a dried up cowpie and make something beautiful out of it." (For those of you not used to country sayings, a cowpie is cow manure.)

We decided on colors and decorations for our home made May Baskets. When we were young, Mom kept the baskets simple. She cut out the modified triangle shapes, then we kids rolled them into cones and glued them together. They weren't fancy, but good enough to hold a few flowers and some candy or a cupcake, and looked festive after we decorated them with paper lace and glitter.

As our ability to create and decorate improved, so did the style of our May Day Baskets.

Ours were bigger than the one pictured here, but this shows the general shape. Mom liked big May Day Baskets so we could pack them full of cupcakes, candy, and a generous bouquet of spring flowers.

Mom created the pattern for our baskets and we kids glued them together.

Mom baked cupcakes and we helped frost them. It wasn't hard to tell Mom's frosting job from ours -- hers looked neat and professional while the ones we kids did looked like a frosting bomb went off. But she said no matter what the cupcakes looked like, they would taste good.

She put cellophane around them, tied loosely with a ribbon to keep our cupcakes fresh.

Sadly, Mom's made-from-scratch cupcake and frosting recipe has been lost to time. But trust me, they were DEE-LICIOUS.

Mom hummed a happy tune and smiled while fixing our breakfast.

"The lilacs are blooming and so are the daffodils. You kids go out and pick one lilac sprig and one jonquil for each May Basket before breakfast."

Rain or shine, we'd be delivering May Baskets today, either before or after school.

OH what torture if we had to wait until after school to deliver our May Day treats!!

The neighbors watched eagerly for Verla Mae's baskets and her chubby little delivery persons.

Mom called them "jonquils." But the results were the same in every May Basket. The lovely scent of lilacs with the cheery contrast of yellow jonquils beautified our May Day baskets.

As the oldest child, I was allowed to carry scissors to cut each jonquil stem carefully.

Our posies went into a big bowl of cold water to rest while we ate breakfast.

Mother loved kittens, puppies, her children, and kindness. She wanted her children to be sweet and loving and she saw us through a mother's eyes, even when we weren't really all that sweet.

We four chubby kidlets took delight in delivering May Day baskets, partly because it made our mother so happy. We ran around the neighborhood, giggling with excitement, hanging the home made decorated baskets on door handles, while Mom watched us from behind the screen door. To her, we looked like this kitten instead of the bunch of wild yahoos we were.

I don't have a picture in my files of we four chubby kids in the days of delivering May Day baskets, but here we are today.

We haven't forgotten our creative, soft hearted mother who loved to make pretty baskets and delicious goodies, who grew beautiful flowers and shared them on May Day.

We're all a bunch of softies to this day, and honor our mother's memory in every way we can. May Day is just one of the many legacies living in our memories. We haven't changed much from the little kids we once were. Left to right:

Pam, the youngest girl, inherited Mom's creative gifts.

Me, the oldest, hamming for the camera. Mom's creativity passed me by.

Jeanne, makes every holiday special with her creative cooking & plans.

Roger, the youngest, loves to reminisce and look after his sisters.

Happy May Day, Mom!! Wish we could deliver May baskets to everyone like we did when we were kids, just to see your happy smile.

I'm a member of Joan's team and made this lens for the lens contest. GO TEAM!!