back in the '50s. I remember making little paper baskets and filling them with dandelions and hanging them on neighbors' doors. It's not just a Catholic tradition. https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/30/402817821/a-forgotten-tradition-may-basket-day

In fact my neighbor across the street is, like me, a senior. We talked about our May Baskets made with construction paper. We don't think you can still buy that type of paper. We also put candy in with the flowers.

In grammar and kindergarten schools. Wiki say this is an European tradition, but this was in Williamsburg, Virginia mid 1950s

Note: Everyone around here migrated from Germany

Lots of may baskets around.

Last edited Fri May 1, 2020, 03:19 PM - Edit history (1)

In Sweden they do a similar ritual at midsummer (probably because it's still too cold in May). The whole Maypole thing comes from an old pagan ritual from Germanic-Norse traditions, possibly based on the world-tree, Yggdrasil. Check out the movie Midsommar for a very scary version.

Then they grow up.

includes the crowning of statues or pictures of the Virgin with flowers.

where we crowned Mary in May. I remember because one girl peed her pants as she was putting the crown on Mary. Strange I don't remember it being done before that day, or after. But there was a little song that went along with it..
"oh mary we crown thee with blossoms today...queen of the something, queen of the something else.

I remember as if it were yesterday. St. Mary's RC School.

"Bring flowers of the fairest
Bring flowers of the rarest
From garden and woodland
And hillside and vale
Our full hearts are swelling
Our glad voices telling
The praise of the loveliest
Rose of the vale.

O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May
O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May."

and, now I have an earworm.

These songs/hymns are so ingrained after nine years in Catholic school that they'll be with me forever.

your story of the little one and the crowning. Often it is the blush moments that make a memory stand out in time.

in a long time.🤗❤

When I was a kid the baskets usually had popped corn, M&Ms, and a few violet blooms.

A procession of all us (Catholic) grammar school children walked from the school to the church. It was a big deal because they blocked the intersection and we walked on the street like a 'big people' procession, with the Priests carrying a statue of Mary on some sort of platform on their shoulders, and the statue's feet were surrounded by flowers and Mary also wore a flower wreath on her head. Very impressive when you're a little kid.

The one I remember most vividly was when I was in second grade. That year, my whole class would be making our First Communion at the Mass when we got to the church, so we all wore our Communion outfits. The boys wore their suits and we girls wore our white dresses and veils - and white gloves.

All of us had received a white Rosary as a gift from the various church clubs, and as we walked down the street singing the well-rehearsed hymns, we had the Rosaries wrapped around our little prayer-folded hands as our Parents stood on the sidewalk taking pictures.