Mardi Gras is about celebrating the pleasures of this life. The parades with all sorts of masked figures and floats can be seen on television but nothing beats the sights, sounds and smells of actually being there. The festivities are bright and colorful. Lots of masks and lots of color, especially green, gold and purple. However, most can’t make the trip to cities like St. Louis, or New Orleans, so they put on their own parades and festivities for the local folks. If traveling to any of these places is out of the question, there is much that can be done to celebrate the event at home.
Here are some great tips for celebrating Mardi Gras at home:
Can’t make it to New Orleans this year?
- Contact the neighbors in your neighborhood and ask if they would like to have their own parade this year. Consider decorating every conveyance from wagons to tractors to pickup trucks. Get the pets involved with their own special costumes. Build a little review stand where the parade participants will pass and have at least three impartial judges (if they can be found) judge each float or festive design as it passes by. Hand out ribbons and gifts to all even if they didn’t win third place. Following the parade, enjoy some backyard jambalaya and send everyone away with their own personalized Mardi Gras party favors to commemorate the occasion.
- Gather the family around a genuine Mardi Gras meal with crawfish etouffee. Add in some red beans, rice and some that grand ole’ jambalaya.
- Have some King Cake and eat it too! There are some great New Orleans bakeries that could some of that sweet stuff to the front door. But for time and cost, a great poor man’s alternative would be to grab a can of those easy bake cinnamon rolls, give them a hot dog shape and bake. Baste them some icing and perhaps some brown or other colored sugar. It’s not going to be exactly like King Cake, but family and friends will still be wolfing them down!
- Bust out some old Halloween masks or create some from scratch with colored feathers, paint and all that glitters. Consider using garland and tinsel tucked away after the Christmas holiday and make colorful costumes. Get the kids together and build some colorful masks to wear for a family walk on Mardi Gras and say hello to the neighbors as he family traverses the neighborhood.
- One idea would be to brighten the day for others who cannot attend in any way a local or long distance celebration. Contact the social activities of the local nursing home and arrange to bring some of that King Cake and deliver some personalized Mardis Gras party favors going room to room and down the hall and try a little dancing with some of them.
Wild at Work
With co-worker support and company permission, organize an office parade for either in-house or around the corporate grounds during lunch hour. Order in some of that delicious King Cake and coffee. With colorful masks donned by all, whether they’re ready for dancing or just walking in line behind the dancers, this joyous office party is about to begin and the other tenants in the building are about to think that their zip code has just changed.
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