Happy Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras celebrations, otherwise known worldwide as Fat Tuesday, will begin on Tuesday February 28th, 2017. The holiday is full of food, celebrations, and fun as many prepare themselves for the upcoming season of Lent leading to Easter. The celebration of Mardi Gras is believed to have started thousands of years ago with pagan celebrations, where people celebrated spring and fertility festivals. These festivals are believed to have been Roman in origin. The holidays and celebrations had become a part of the local traditions and culture. With the quick and sudden influx of Christianity sweeping the area, officials wanted to keep their own culture while still incorporating the faith.

These combined celebration quickly became the prelude for many to the forty days preceding Lent. The Roman holidays of the past would take on a new form in later centuries. In France, people would traditionally indulge in leftover meat, eggs, milk, and cheese in their house before preparing to fast with meals of only fish.

Mardi Gras would come to America on March 3rd, 1699, although the date and time is somewhat disputed by historians. It is believed that the transferral took place when French explorers Iberville and Bienville landed just south of Louisiana. The holiday would progress over the next hundred years or so, ending up with small parties and lavish balls celebrated yearly.

However, Mardi Gras celebrations would be brought to a halt and cancelled all together with Louisiana being taken over by the Spanish. The Spanish did not condone nor approve of the celebration and tactics of the Mardi Gras holiday, therefore they refused to let the people celebrate. Eventually the holiday would be restored when Louisiana became an official state in 1812.

Today, Mardi Gras is celebrated around the world. It is known famously in South America as Carnival. This is similar to other Mardi Gras celebrations with floats, food, and fun for all who participate. In the United States, Louisiana is the only state where Mardi Gras is a legal holiday.

Even some of the traditions of Mardi Gras have a vast and varied past, like the holiday, itself. The tradition of throwing beads during the Mardi Gras parade was originally meant by organizers to celebrate the Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanov Alexandrovitch, who accepted an invitation to the festivities in 1872. The beads were the colors of the Grand Duke’s house, and each color was assigned a meaning. The purple beads meant justice, the green faith, and the gold for power.

The tradition of Kings Cake also began when people began celebrating the three kings who represented gifts at the birth of Christ. Traditionally this cake was eaten during the Christmas season, ending when Fat Tuesday began. The baby image that used to be baked into the cake represented baby Jesus. Many hold that if a person gets the slice of cake with the baby, then they must buy the next cake for the following year. Mardi Gras is celebrated as a final push of the past before the seriousness of Lent. Happy Fat Tuesday from the Jefferson County Post!