May Day?
Posted by Significant-Track797@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 164 comments
Growing up in Nebraska, we would do "May Day" baskets on May 1st every year. We would fill little cups or bags with candy and drop them off at our friends/family's doorsteps and then ding dong ditch them. I think there was something like "if you are caught you have to kiss them" but we never did that, we'd just tackle and tickle each other.
I was talking to my friends from the east coast about this and they had never heard of it. Just wondering if it's popular anywhere else?
RustBeltLab@reddit
I was always told May Day is for commies, like hockey and vodka.
KevrobLurker@reddit
Hockey? For commies?
I'll give you crony capitalism (non-sports fans get stuck with a tax bill for new arenas) but not necessarily socialists. I doubt pacifists approve of ice hockey, as the NHL & associated minor leagues play it. I love hockey, and I vote Libertarian.
NorthMathematician32@reddit
Let me guess, you lived in a community very attached to German or Scandinavian culture? This sounds like part of the pagan celebration of May Day.
Significant-Track797@reddit (OP)
Ah that totally makes sense, Nebraska has deep historic roots in German and Czech culture from the early immigrants to the land.
I had no clue that's where it came from. Cool!
iPoseidon_xii@reddit
Germans celebrate St. Nicholas day this way. Kids clean their boots and place them outside the door. In the morning they’re filled with candy and chocolates, and toys and always tangerines 😂
There is also Fasching where kids go door to door to recite a little song/poem and they get candy or money…or tangerines 😂 this is probably closer to Halloween than May Day. I’m from NE as well, and I remember doing Mag Day baskets in catholic school
mst3k_42@reddit
I went to catholic school in the Midwest and we’d put our shoes in the school hallways for St. Nicholas day. After a little bit we’d run back out to our shoes and they’d be full of candy. As an adult this sounds so weird to me now, haha.
iPoseidon_xii@reddit
No way! This is the first time I’ve heard someone in the States celebrate it like this. Do you mind if I ask what state?
KevrobLurker@reddit
The whole presents on Christmas deal is a merger of Dutch holiday traditions in Nieuw Amsterdam/Nederland (to be New York City & State) with those of the English-speaking colonists. St Nicholas ~= Sinterklaas ~= Santa Claus, aka St Nick! The Protestants were not big on saint's cults, but having the old bishop honor baby Jesus was considered less Catholic, I guess.
Competitive_Web_6658@reddit
We did this in Minnesota! We also celebrated Three Kings Day and Ascension Day.
Altoid24@reddit
We did something similar to this about a decade ago a few times in Westeren New York.
mst3k_42@reddit
I just googled it and lots of catholic schools in the US still do this.
mst3k_42@reddit
Indiana, but definitely in German American land.
Significant-Track797@reddit (OP)
We totally did this in CCD!
KittyCubed@reddit
I have German and Czech heritage and live in a part of Texas that had a lot of German and Czech immigrants. Never heard of this, but now I’m going to ask my mom about it.
Old-Fun9568@reddit
I'm from Texas. My mom's side of the family has the same roots. I've never heard of this either 🤔
MillerTime_9184@reddit
Same as a South Dakota native
NovelWord1982@reddit
Same as someone from NW Iowa.
We also had a May pole at my school on May Day.
Agamenticus72@reddit
Ahh, yes ! My great grandparents were all Norwegian and German immigrants , who settled in Minnesota. I never realized it was just some cultures, not all who did this . Cool indeed !
Global_Sense_8133@reddit
That fits. We did this in South Dakota.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
It was very popular in England and probably why we did it in Massachusetts. May baskets were ubiquitous, made in school and even sold in stores - some chocolate shops still do.
pearlywest@reddit
I grew up in Maine and I remember May Day baskets being sold in stores. They were made from crepe paper with long streaers.
StrippinChicken@reddit
I'm from PA and have never heard of May Day. Maybe different groups of Germans went to PA than Nebraska? Weird
Queen_Starsha@reddit
No self-respecting Ana-Baptist, as the Amish are, would celebrate May Day.
janisthorn2@reddit
The Anabaptists definitely wouldn't be down with May Day. But not all PA Dutch are Amish and Mennonite.
The majority of the PA Dutch settlers were actually Lutheran or Evangelical Reformed. They're the ones with the hex signs and folk traditions like Groundhog's Day. I don't know if they celebrated May Day specifically, but it definitely wouldn't have gone against their beliefs to do so.
StrippinChicken@reddit
Thank you both for the insight :)
janisthorn2@reddit
I wonder if the May Day celebration has anything to do with when the various Germans immigrated. PA's Germans were at least 100-150 earlier than the second wave of German immigration that happened just prior to the Civil War. Traditions can change a lot in 150 years.
I'm in NE Ohio and I've never heard of May Day baskets. The geographical spread on this thread is crazy. They do it in New England and Nebraska, but not PA or OH? How weird!
StrippinChicken@reddit
I'm only an hour out from Lancaster in SEPA, so I'm willing to bet it's the Anabaptist reason for me
janisthorn2@reddit
My PA Dutch side of the family were all Lutherans from Lancaster. Lots of the "Fancy Dutch" settled in Lancaster.
terryaugiesaws@reddit
When I hear May Day I think only of May 1st labor protests.
KevrobLurker@reddit
An example of the commies redoing a religious holiday.
We don;t do that in the States, some fringe groups excepted, September's Labor Day takes its place,
DoinIt989@reddit
"International Labor Day" was chosen as May 1 in memory of the Haymarket protests in 1886. It's basically a coincidence. Left wing groups do marches of course, but for most people, it's basically just an "Spring holiday", like how Labor day in the US is the unofficial "end of summer).
KevrobLurker@reddit
I knew about the Haymarket riots. Sometimes US cities have a Labor Festival or picnic on the September weekend holiday.
Milwaukee's starts with a parade.
https://www.visitmilwaukee.org/event/laborfest-2025/10608/
TBF, just about any sizeable group in MKE has a summer do at Festival Park, aka the Summerfest grounds.
US Labor Day was specifically scheduled for Sept to not be associated with the socialist May Day events. It is also midway between July 4 and Thanksgiving, so a good spot for an end-of-the-summer fête.
DoinIt989@reddit
Not exactly. The US made Labor Day a public holiday before the commies adopted it. It just happened to be a coincidence that it worked out with traditional holiday period in many Euro countries, so it was a natural "fit" as a concession over there. The vast majority of people just treat May 1 as a day off of work there.
And in the US, I definitely see way more activity from lefties on May 1 vs "Labor Day". That's a clap fest for business unions maybe.
KevrobLurker@reddit
Just for completeness:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/05/labor-day-may-grover-cleveland/to
The article discusses the May 1 commemorations and how the 2 "holidays" competed for a while in the States.
As of 2024, union membership in the US has dropped under 10% of the workforce. That's over 32% for public sector workers and under 6% for those in the private sector. No wonder most treat Labor Day as just another holiday. Before I retired, I worked in 2 union shops. 1 was a county civil service temporary appointment. I was not required to join the union, and left after 3 months to return to my university. The other was a manufacturing job, and I would only have been eligible to join if I had been there a year. Instead I moved out of state aftercare few months. (Part of my plan to finish my degree.)
Longtime employees already in the Union hated we new guys, as we reduced their overtime. They all wanted to strike as the contract expiration date approached. They had saved money, planned on getting strike benefits. This was 20 years before unemployment benefits for strikers in that state was passed. They were still looking forward to the time off. I couldn't blame them. The work was hard and dirty.
DoinIt989@reddit
>a clap fest for **business unions** maybe.
terryaugiesaws@reddit
Yeah I didn't grow up Christian so I wouldn't have known about the holiday.
Eastern-Zucchini6291@reddit
Not a west coast thing.
May day is kinda taken over by the socialist worker day(that nobody cares about). Youll see like a flyer
Agamenticus72@reddit
Yes, I did this in Washington state in the 70s.
slippery_when_wet@reddit
It was definitely a thing where I grew up in Oregon. We made construction paper baskets, picked flowers from the garden and left them on neighbors porches.
Agamenticus72@reddit
In Washington state in the 1970s, I did this. We would make a basket from paper and fill it with wildflowers and leave it on door handles of relatives, etc. I’m sure it was passed down for a few generations and apparently died out with me ! Oops
165averagebowler@reddit
Wisconsin and we mostly made paper and pipe cleaner flowers for May baskets at school
Pryncess_Dianna@reddit
We did the Maypole dance in elementary school. My mother would make a May Day bouquet and my father would call her a communist.
Emotional_Shift_8263@reddit
I lived in NJ and we did May Day baskets. My mom and I would make them from construction paper and I would leave them on neighbors doorsteps. She was Estonian, so maybe stemmed from that
kaywild11@reddit
I live in Nebraska. I know some people to do it, but not many.
IanDOsmond@reddit
Never heard of this. I have seen maypole dancing and leftist political rallies.
Not at the same time, though.
WritPositWrit@reddit
That’s lovely tradition. Living in NJ/NY, I don’t know anyone who does that, or even observes May Day in any way other than to say “it’s May Day!”
TinCanSon@reddit
Grew up in Idaho, we did this but it was flowers and we left them on the steps of older widows.
MaggieJack1@reddit
From PA and we did this with little baskets of flowers hung on doorknob. Ring bell and run away. Thanks for pulling this memory up!
BankManager69420@reddit
We learned about it in elementary school here in Oregon, but I went to a magnet school so it wasn’t really feasible to celebrate.
nwbrown@reddit
No, throughout the US May Day is not a particularly important holiday.
In the late 1800's there was a debate on when to create a new holiday celebrating workers. Some favored the traditional European folk holidayMay Day, May 1st. Others favored a later date in September, now known as Labor Day.
Unfortunately a violent riot in Chicago that claimed nearly a dozen lives in early May 1886 soured the public on the May holiday, so we went with the September Labor Day.
GroundThing@reddit
This is largely untrue. It's more that policymakers wanted to undercut the labor movement, as they felt the May holiday would strengthen the labor movement by having the Haymarket Affair connection be a rallying cry, the way it was becoming internationally. Most of them didn't want a Labor Day at all, but felt that an official September holiday would be better than an unofficial May one.
AboveGroundGrandma@reddit
Minnesota here-we dropped the May baskets also.
Prinessbeca@reddit
I'm Nebraskan also and did this in Omaha. The elementary school by my old house there did it pre-covid. The daycare by my mom's house still does, she gets flowers every year.
My school in Iowa does it every year. Kindergarteners deliver to every staff member at the school and get chased back to their classroom.
My mom celebrated as a kid in Indiana, too!
Froggirl26@reddit
Same, NJ
Last-Radish-9684@reddit
We did that in Newton KS when I was in early elementary school (late '50s).
Scrounger_HT@reddit
im from NE also and can confirm May Day was a thing we used to run around the neighborhood ding dong ditching treats on peoples doorsteps. we did this quite a bit when we were young but it faded out and we were like the only people that did it, ill have to check with my friends and see if they ever did it
IainwithanI@reddit
Never heard of this, but I’ve heard of putting dog poop in a lunch sack, setting it on fire at someone’s door, and then ding dong ditching
glennis_pnkrck@reddit
East coast, yes I remember this from when I was a kid (1970s-early 80s.)
sanka@reddit
Did this in the early-mid 80s in NW Iowa. We made May day baskets in school too. We never knew why, it was just a thing.
Sugah-Mama@reddit
East Coast never heard of this
Rei_Rodentia@reddit
from the East coast, I've never heard of this.
Standard-Outcome9881@reddit
Ditto. What an odd custom.
yuukosbooty@reddit
The closest thing is singing “May Day Carol” at the end of every spring concert in Peabody Children’s Chorus
the-bees-sneeze@reddit
Same, VA here.
byebybuy@reddit
Grew up in LA, May Day itself was basically ignored altogether.
OK_The_Nomad@reddit
Pagan traditions In Germany, the day is known as Maifeiertag and is celebrated with dancing, singing and the raising of maypoles. In Finland and Sweden, May Day is celebrated with picnics and outdoor activities, while in the United Kingdom, the celebration includes Morris dancing and other traditional folk customs. https://www.ef.com
Courtesy of AI
MysteryBelle_NC@reddit
I'm on the east coast and never heard of that here; however, May 1st is my birthday, so I'm on board with this.
Icy_Huckleberry_8049@reddit
from Texas, never heard of it
Fleetdancer@reddit
I have a neighbor who grew up in Eastern WA, she drops flowers off on everyone's doorstop for Mayday. But I've never met anyone else who does.
CompanyOther2608@reddit
Grew up in Missouri; we did this.
Tough_Tangerine7278@reddit
We did a May Day at our school. Lots of singing and a May Pole (dancing around and tying up a ribbon).
thusnewmexico@reddit
Yes, something similar where we grew up in Midwest (Indianapolis) only instead of candy, we would place flowers...usually wild violets, clover, or some small white flowers in a simple paper basket, then ding done ditch.
PeaceABC123@reddit
Grew up in Iowa--we did the same thing as kids. Loved May Day!!
CosmicVolcano@reddit
Nebraska here, too. I remember the May Day baskets as a kid. As an adult with my own kids, still in Nebraska, it seems like it's never been a thing for this younger generation.
EffectiveSalamander@reddit
We did that back in the 70s in Minnesota. I think it faded out.
JustAnotherDay1977@reddit
My kids grew up on the ‘00s in Minnesota, and their friends did it.
GeekyPassion@reddit
Never heard of that it sounds like something cutesie that would be in gilmore girls
JustAnotherDay1977@reddit
My kids’ friends in Minnesota did this.
rosietherosebud@reddit
Many but not most are aware it’s a significant holiday for much of the world, but we don’t celebrate it in any way really. I do but that’s just because it’s my birthday :)
YourOldCellphone@reddit
What the fuck?
JohnHenryMillerTime@reddit
Were there a lot of Sewer Socialists in Nebraska? At least in WI, May Day got rebranded as "May Day" were a real holiday got replaced by a quasi-neopagan reimagining.
RevolutionaryWeek573@reddit
I grew up in Washington State and, as kids, we would put flowers in paper cones (that we made) and ding dong ditch our neighbors.
I don’t know where I learned it and I think we only did it one year. I often wonder about that.
CommercialExotic2038@reddit
I grew up in Southern California, I’ve heard of it, but we never celebrated the occasion
atheologist@reddit
Never heard of this in MA or NY.
GardenWitchMom@reddit
We did this in Central California. Mostly with the grandparents.
Rhomega2@reddit
I was a kid in Nebraska and never did May Day.
Flat_Tumbleweed_2192@reddit
I grew up in New England and went to parochial school. We celebrated May Day in honor of the Virgin Mary, like a holiday of obligation.
KevrobLurker@reddit
May 1 wasn't a HDoO in my youth: 1960s, Long Island, NY. We did the procession & decorating a statue of Mary with flowers, Sang Marian hymns.
I got clobbered by the Head Altar Boy, cutting up while awaiting inspection. I refused to participate in the ceremony and threw my vestments at the door of the sacristy. That was the end of my altar boy career.
May 1 was Beltane in the old Irish calendar. Another example of the church parking a celebration on top of an old pagan one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night
bee102019@reddit
This. I hear May Day and I think Beltane.
susannahstar2000@reddit
Southern Oregon. I remember putting a few little flowers in a paper cone, hanging it on a doorknob and then playing ding dong ditch, for a few neighbors, as we had heard that was a tradition.
abmbulldogs@reddit
Grew up in MS and live in AL. It’s not a thing either place.
Barfotron4000@reddit
We did this! I learned my great grandmother can haul ass when she caught me. We’re from rural North Dakota
MrsPedecaris@reddit
I grew up in Washington, and that was a thing when I was young.
My kids, in the 80's had school workbooks with Mayday flower basket crafts, too, designed to hang on doorknobs, but we just openly gave them to Grandma's and etc -- didn't do the secret thing.
names-suck@reddit
Sounds like the Halloween Phantom?
We never had a May Day thing, but in October, you might find a bag of treats on your front porch with a note that says something like, "Watch out! You've been hit by the Halloween Phantom!" with instructions to pass along the fun to your friends, family, and/or neighbors.
You were supposed to avoid getting caught, or even having anyone knew it was you who "hit" them, but I don't remember what happened if you couldn't pull it off.
TheNerdofLife@reddit
Never heard of this, tbh, but it sounds fun.
KKWL199@reddit
It was wonderful!
KKWL199@reddit
Also from Nebraska; we definitely did this on May Day. Also added wildflowers from the woods to our baskets
AdelleDeWitt@reddit
I remember doing this once or twice as a kid but only because my mother who is from Minnesota talked about how much she used to love doing it when she was a kid.
cohrt@reddit
nope. have never really done anything for may day
Aggressive-Emu5358@reddit
From my experience with your state, the white people in Nebraska do a lot of off things that I think many of us would consider kind of hokey. That and make a lot of “salads” that include things that should never be in a salad.
happyburger25@reddit
I vaguely remember a festival thing in Elementary, May pole and everything.
waltzthrees@reddit
Never heard of anyone doing May Day stuff in the US.
baalroo@reddit
Never heard of this here in Kansas.
However, in grade school, teachers would gladly take any excuse of a holiday they could to base random arts & crafts sessions on that would help pass the time and keep the kids entertained. So we would make little paper craft stuff and color handout pages for everything from May Day to Arbor Day to President's Day, usually with little to no context about the holiday or how the thing we were doing actually related back to the holiday.
So, for me, May Day is still something I think of as a "grade school arts & crafts holiday."
Jedi-girl77@reddit
This definitely wasn’t a thing in North Carolina. We don’t do anything at all for May Day.
thatrightwinger@reddit
Born in Kansas, never even heard of this.
Dave_A480@reddit
From the Seattle area... Never heard of this...
May Day = 'Riot Season' - although the local cause-heads haven't really done much of that since COVID....
nomoregroundhogs@reddit
I don’t know if I’d say it’s “popular” here in Kansas but I am at least aware of it and know what you’re talking about. We did something related to this in school when I was very young but I don’t really remember the details.
Migraine_Megan@reddit
I am from WA and I did this growing up. There's a ton of Scandinavian and German immigrants there, but I don't recall others doing it. So I either picked it up from my mom or in school. I do remember learning about Maypoles in school. I would make May Day baskets out of construction paper, filled with flowers from my mom's garden, and hung on my neighbor's door knob. People seemed to really like it, so I did it for years.
slippery_when_wet@reddit
That's exactly what we did in Oregon.
slippery_when_wet@reddit
Oregon and we did may day but with homemade baskets out of construction paper we would decorate with crayons then fill with flowers (usually daffodils, but kind of depended on what was in bloom). We left them on neighbors porches, but also somenaunts/family friends.
InevitableRhubarb232@reddit
We did it in Illinois
Sleepygirl57@reddit
I’ve never heard of this in Indiana.
OceanPoet87@reddit
I had never heard of this until we moved to a very small town where my son has had it the last 2 years.
KJHagen@reddit
I grew up in suburban Northern California and we did something like this. The baskets were left for the mothers in the neighborhood, and it was usually done by little boys with the encouragement of their parents.
anneofgraygardens@reddit
I've never heard of this. Where did you grow up?
KJHagen@reddit
South Bay Area (San Jose and Campbell).
anneofgraygardens@reddit
Interesting. I grew up in the city and the North Bay and don't remember doing anything like this.
KJHagen@reddit
Late 60s and early 70s mostly. I don’t remember it when I was in high school.
anneofgraygardens@reddit
Oh okay, that could explain it, I'm a bit younger than you. Kind of bummed, this sounds fun, and it's sad when old traditions are lost.
KJHagen@reddit
Yeah. It was really sweet. There were a lot of both stay at home and working moms in the neighborhood, and this was like a goofy version of Mother’s Day. I remember only having a few baskets, and not many available flowers, so we picked wild mustard, daisies, etc. and just left those.
floofienewfie@reddit
Grew up in SoCal; never heard of this before now.
KJHagen@reddit
We had a large Irish Catholic family on one side of us, and a large Polish Catholic family on the other. They were really into it, so maybe it has a cultural angle?
floofienewfie@reddit
No doubt. My mom grew up in Chicago and maybe she did May baskets, but she’s gone now so I can’t ask.
KJHagen@reddit
Yes. One neighbor family was from Chicago.
My wife is from Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) and didn’t grow up in the US. She says that they did something similar on April 1st.
Ok-Race-1677@reddit
Sounds like some superstition kids thing that your grandma would have said they did in the 1950s.
rattlehead44@reddit
I’ve never heard of this either.
semisubterranean@reddit
My mom had May baskets as a kid. My brother and I never did though, but we often heard about them.
JosephBlowsephThe3rd@reddit
From VA, and I had one set of neighbors bring us a cup full of candy on May Day one year. I had no clue what it was about, and still don't.
MountainTomato9292@reddit
I’m in the south, I have never heard of this.
machagogo@reddit
Never heard of this. May Day only meant one thing as far as I knew.
Katesouthwest@reddit
Never heard of it.
Complete_Aerie_6908@reddit
From TN and I’ve never heard of it.
ThePolemicist@reddit
I live in Iowa, and it's still done here. My kids gave May Day baskets every year until this year. They're older now, 15 and 13, and just kind of grew out of it.
Vast_Pension1320@reddit
Grew up in Iowa. We did May baskets for May Day as well. I’ve lived in Kansas for a while and haven’t heard of anybody doing it here.
Sufficient_Cod1948@reddit
I've never heard of this specific practice, and am only vaguely familiar with May Day as a holiday.
Most of the questions we get regarding May Day are asking if we celebrate it, or why we don't. We have Labor Day, it serves the same purpose.
beenoc@reddit
May Day and (international) Labor Day (International Workers' Day) are two separate holidays that happen to land on the same day and are often both just called May Day. May Day is a celebration of the beginning of summer and dates back to pre-Roman times.
abbot_x@reddit
May 1 is also observed by the Catholic Church as the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, but that originated counterprogramming against socialism, so it was specifically placed on Labor Day.
Perdendosi@reddit
Yes. It was (is) a midwestern thing. We did it in Iowa. I have a friend who lives here in Utah with me who did it in Indiana.
My daughter has given May baskets to a few friends and likes the tradition, though we don't give them to every friend.
https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/30/402817821/a-forgotten-tradition-may-basket-day
https://www.axios.com/local/des-moines/2025/05/01/may-day-baskets-iowa-tradition-2025
https://desmoinesmom.com/may-day-old-tradition-new-world/
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
Not mid-western. Was a thing here in Massachusetts and the rest of New England. We grew up making them in school and so did my Gram who was born in the 1800s.
Common in England and prob brought over from there,
Sufficient_Cod1948@reddit
Finally something that actually is a Midwest thing!
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
We did it in Mass- here it is in Yankee magaine.
Folksma@reddit
This is so interesting
I've never seen this happen in Michigan
JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit
More like an old European tradition that still lives on in the Midwest
fragrant_basil_7400@reddit
We did it in Indiana too.
ITrCool@reddit
Arkansas, grew up in the south Midwest. Never heard of this either.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
We made May Day basket here in New England. We did not do the chase around thing. It was more likely we'd make the baskets at school, fill them, and they'd be delivered to a nursing home.
May day events were also really big at colleges.
The baskets looked just like this -- here in this "Yankee" magazine.
hissyfit64@reddit
We did it in Iowa, but only in one small town and only in our neighborhood. I think my mom set it up with the other houses because she thought it would be fun. (She's Irish and Welsh)
butt_honcho@reddit
We used to do that, but with flowers. This was in New Jersey, but my mom was from Indiana.
hypo-osmotic@reddit
I had heard of this tradition when I was a kid, can't remember if it was from my family (with some German and Swedish ancestry) or from school. I made a basket for a friend and left it on their doorstep once, but it wasn't a regular thing for either my family or anyone else in my town
seifd@reddit
I'm from Michigan. I've never heard of this before.
Karamist623@reddit
Nope. I’m from the NE US and never heard of this.
TucsonTacos@reddit
We did this in southern Minnesota too! We moved to Virginia for a couple years last elementary and did it in the neighborhood and nobody reciprocated or participated :(
Background_Humor5838@reddit
I've never even heard of this. Sounds like the rest of the country needs to start doing this lol
ReindeerFun7572@reddit
Yes! I’m from Wisconsin and we did this!
shelwood46@reddit
This is cute, but we did not do this growing up in Wisconsin (probably because it was still barely spring then), and definitely nowhere I lived as an adult in NJ & PA.
ReindeerFun7572@reddit
That’s funny, I’m from Wisconsin and we always did this growing up!
Possible-Today7233@reddit
My mom from Minnesota did this. She lived in a Norwegian/Dutch area.
ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit
I've never heard of this tradition, but it sounds like a lot of fun for kids!
Steamsagoodham@reddit
I’m from the Midwest and I’ve never heard of it. Sounds like something very community specific.
Buhos_En_Pantelones@reddit
I grew up in upstate NY. I've vaguely heard of it, but we never did anything to celebrate it.
Reasonable-Company71@reddit
In Hawaii May 1st is "May Day" or Lei Day. Lei Day is a celebration of Hawaiian culture, and the Aloha Spirit. People commonly celebrate by giving gifts of leis to one another and wearing their best Aloha wear. Schools usually put on performances and elect a Lei Day court of Kings and Queens to represent the different islands.
AuraCrash78@reddit
I did it growing up in Northern Ohio....but that was mostly due to my mother. Not everyone did it.
tsukiii@reddit
Not a thing in San Diego. When I google, I see mostly Iowa and Nebraska celebrating this way https://desmoinesmom.com/may-day-old-tradition-new-world/
blondechick80@reddit
I have heard of May Pole, but never this.