Mardi Gras—or Fat Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday, or even Pancake Day for some people—is a time of celebration for many. The mention of the phrase brings about thoughts of large parades, colorful beads, diverse masks, and creative costumes, among many other things.
The event takes place the day before the Christian holiday of Ash Wednesday and is the final celebration of the two-week carnival. Though not all of the United States participates in this event, a number of cities celebrate Mardi Gras with plenty of grandeur.
The most acclaimed display of Mardi Gras takes place in New Orleans, LA, and the event attracts thousands of people. During the celebration, parades, parties, and other types of festivities are held all over the area. There is even a parade of brightly-colored floats as well as masked members who throw things into the crowd.
Each type of Mardi Gras event or item even has its own type of history and importance. Doubloons—brightly colored coins engraved with the parade’s theme on one side and a carnival club logo on the other side—have always been quite popular every Mardi Gras. Clubs have unique doubloons, and these coins change every year. They are all minted in a number of colors and materials—among them are aluminum, silver, and bronze. There are even coins dipped in unusual colors, so purple, neon green, and pink coins are no strangers to the celebration! Believe it or not, some of the older doubloons have become so rare that they are sought after by many collectors—the oldest coins are now extremely valuable.
Mardi Gras beads have also been incorporated into the celebration, and these are still one of the most popular items to have gone into circulation during parades and parties. Certain colors actually do hold meaning, though most of the symbolism in Mardi Gras beads has been lost due to their extremely shiny and distracting exteriors. The original bead colors were gold (power), purple (justice), and green (faith). Now, however, a large variety of colors have been thrown into the mix.
There is also a great importance held in the King Cake. This cake is usually an oval-shaped cinnamon dough cake, with purple, green, and gold sprinkles at the top. The King Cake is sometimes even used to determine the king or queen for a certain club’s float. A small plastic baby is hidden inside the cake, and whoever gets the slice with the baby becomes the float’s ruler.
Now we come to the topic of the parade itself. These parades are planned very carefully and with a great amount of people in different clubs—these clubs are traditionally called Krewes—and are the ones responsible for creating their own floats. Floats are usually designed with a Krewe theme and are the most essential objects in a parade. There is a king or a queen for each float, elected among the Krewe members.
Masks and costumes are one of the most entertaining aspects of Mardi Gras. Many don masks to remain anonymous—celebrities travel to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and put on masks to be free of public scrutiny. Costumes are optional, of course, but a more outrageous mask or costume can help people stand out. If you actually want beads or doubloons thrown at you, you better put a mask or costume on, the Krewe members might like it and throw a souvenir your way.
Some of these parades and parties don’t even begin on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Parades start one or two weeks beforehand to allow for more celebration time. It would actually be quite a drag if it were just one day, given all the planning that goes into the celebrations. Float ideas for the next year are even planned a few weeks after the previous Mardi Gras ends. These parades are also accompanied by local marching bands, jazz groups, and dance teams that entertain the crowd as the floats pass by. And who can forget the amounts of fatty food that will be plentiful during the celebration?
Many other places outside of the United States celebrate and take Mardi Gras seriously. The Rio de Janeiro Carnival in Brazil is very similar to the New Orleans Mardi Gras, with the exception that the Brazilians fill the town with Samba dancing. Other places that should be noted for celebrating Mardi Gras are Venice, Italy and Mazatlan, Mexico. There are even many nations scattered around the Caribbean that observe Mardi Gras, as well as certain cities in Europe and Latin America.
