May Day!

So it's May 1st, and I feel like I blinked and there February, March and now April went by. It's hard to believe that the school year is very nearly over and that summer is just around the corner. The end of the year is always an emotional time, full of excitement and sadness and wonder for what is to come next. However, my intentions for this blog wasn't to talk about the ending school year, it was to compare other cultures to ours.

When I lived in England for seven months due to my father's job, I celebrated May day. Actually, my whole school did, and since my school building consisted of three rooms total, (disregarding the bathrooms and offices) literally, my whole school was involved. I was in third year at the time (which is like second grade here). I remember the big kids would have to practice dancing around the May Day pole with long ribbons in order to make a colorful design until the ribbons were completely wrapped around the pole. I remember I was fascinated by this action specifically because it was so different from anything I had ever seen or done back at home.

^This is basically what it looked like^

Acknowledging the fact that today is May Day, it made me wonder just how other cultures celebrate May Day, if they even celebrate it at all. Once I first moved here to Iowa, I remember some of my peers talking about May Day baskets. I had never heard of a May Day basket, and I was only a couple states away, which I also found interesting. How we can all consider ourselves the same (Americans) and still have totally different traditions, which probably descended from earlier ancestors that came from other countries.

Which leads to me thinking on our really, our culture is nothing original or traditional. It's all bits and pieces from other parts of the world. America truly is just a big melting pot of the world around it.

I'm getting side tracked, going back to the holiday May Day...
It turns out many places in Europe celebrate May 1st, and each with their own little quirk. However they do all have somethings in common, like using flowers, and doing things to bring them luck or kissing.

Though I lived in England, I don't remember the tradition that is supposedly done in London. The children go from house to house and bring flowers to get pennies in return. They then throw the pennies into a wishing well, and afterwards are collected and donated to charity.

France is a little different, and cows play an important role in May Day. They led in parades with many flowers attached to their tails and the people watching the parade try to touch the cows. Touching the cow an May Day is believed to bring good luck.

In Germany, one tradition is for boys to secretly plant a May tree in front of the window of the girl they love. My grandparents are 100% German, and I've never heard of this, nor do I know what a may tree looks like. But I am suddenly curious and want to ask them about some of their traditions as kids. (I guess a quick thorn tree is a May tree.)

^I wouldn't mind having one of these planted by my window :)

The people in Hawaii celebrate their own version of May Day. It's called Lei Day. What they do is they give Hawaiian leis to each other. After they put them around each other's necks they sometimes give a traditional kiss.

So there's a little taste of what today is like around the world. Makes me kind of wish America made a bigger deal out of May Day, it all sounds like a great way to welcome the (hopefully) nice weather.

I got all of this information at http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/mayholidays/a/aa041700a.htm
and all of my pictures off of google.