How are you celebrating Mardi Gras this year?

Mardi Gras is a Midwinter festival sandwiched between Christmas and the season of Lent. Its cold outside, making the Fat-based foods and festivities and colours all the more festive in the cold.

For a traditional King’s Cake. we make a Tiramisu White Cake with Praline layers—the one who finds the baby Jesus in the King’s Cake bakes the cake next year. We also eat lots of pancakes!

As it is the day before the beginning of the Season of Lent, we take down our Christmas Trees. We strip the green, gold and purple beads that have adorned our Christmas Trees since January 6th (Epiphany, the official beginning of the Mardi Gras season) and wear them as Mardi Gras beads.

Then, we haul our community Christmas trees to burn them in a bonfire, and party in costumes and masks. It is the giving up our Christmas and Epiphany festivities, and all the partying, as we prepare for the spiritual and stark season of Lent, as we prepare for Easter.

What are some of YOUR Mardi Gras traditions?