Wearing the Green, Purple and Gold!

Mardi Gras is actually French for "Fat Tuesday", with celebrations culminating on that most special day. At Midnight all reveling ceases and we enter into Lent. Quite a contrast really; the whole idea of the Mardi Gras celebrations is to gorge yourself on food and festival before fasting and doing penance.

The date for Mardi Gras can fall between February 3 and March 9 depending on the Lunar calendar used to determine the date of Easter each year. It is a mortal sin to celebrate Mardi Gras after Ash Wednesday and before Epiphany. We almost had to move our church Mardi Gras event due to a schedule conflict. Doing it after this weekend was proposed and I almost fainted at the thought. Last year, I chastised a local grocery store for doing a Mardi Gras themed sales event in June. They are based in Iowa so they were forgiven as being ignorant of the rules, but just this once.

Mardi Gras is always 47 days before Easter Sunday, no sooner, no later. Not even Hurricane Katrina stopped it.

The official colors for Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold. A bit clashing, but striking none the less. These colors were chosen in 1872 by the King of Carnival, Rex. He chose these colors to stand for the following:

• Purple representing justice
• green for faith
• gold for power

When you are Rex, one choses as one wishes!

Laissez les bon temps rouler !!