Fat Tuesday- Mardi Gras!
- MamaJacobs
- Apr 23, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 25, 2020
I am not from anywhere that celebrates Mardi Gras. I have been to New Orleans for work, but I've never been to Mardi Gras. I don't even know anyone who celebrates the holiday. For some reason, I have always been a bit obsessed with this day. I have collected several decorations and each year I order a Kings Cake shipped in from New Orleans. We typically have a small dinner with a few family members and the girls love it. They are always perplexed that other people in So Cal don't celebrate the day. I love all holidays and Mardi Gras is a festive celebration full of color, music, and joy. I guess it makes sense that the over the top excess of this holiday would be appealing to me. Plus who doesn't want to throw back cocktails on a Tuesday morning? I have always secretly wanted to throw a HUGE Mardi Gras party but it falls on a school night and everyone would probably think it was nuts.
Fat Tuesday was on February 25th this year, the day we returned from a trip. Avery and I both came home sick, so we never got to have our Mardi Gras dinner this year. I thought why not celebrate it now? It is Tuesday, fat seems highly appropriate after 30+ days in quarantine, and who cares if I drink on a Tuesday in my pajamas? I pulled my box of decorations out the cabinet and set up for Mardi Gras! The girls have these Mardi Gras unicorn t-shirts that were perfect to wear with their masks and beads.
I read that Mardi Gras is also called Pancake Day. Fabulous, it is the one food item I can nail every time. I knew I loved this holiday! I used some food coloring to make purple pancakes. Before school we read our "The Night Before Mardi Gras" book. I know it is weird that I have not one, but three kids Mardi Gras books. I buy one each time I go to New Orleans. "Mimi's First Mardi Gras" is our favorite but it was way too long to read this morning. School and work always puts a real kink in my celebrations!
I wanted to start off our day with some fun music. I think that New Orleans Jazz is festive, but no one else seemed to agree and I was quickly overruled. Daddy humors my holiday quirks but he can only take so much. We switched over to the Princess and the Frog soundtrack instead.
Obviously Mardi Gras educational activities are big in Louisiana, so the internet was loaded with great resources. I felt a little less gluttonous finding some educational materials for our day. The first one was free and had a ton of content. It had everything including elaborate crafts, reading materials, and Mardi Gras videos for kids. I might revisit some of those ideas for Mardi Gras next year. https://homeschoolsuperfreak.com/mardi-gras-activities-for-kids/ I also returned to teacherspayteachers for another resource that included some reading comprehension and journal writing, https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mardi-Gras-Reading-Comprehension-More-with-non-fiction-passages-questions-512299.
Our day started out with a journal prompt "What would you do if you were King/Queen for the day?" There was a cute craft of a Queen holding the journal entry. We also made some necklaces using dot paints.
We used our handout for some reading comprehension. They read through the fun facts and then wrote a paragraph about what they learned.
I would have loved a New Orleans style dinner but I knew we didn't have access to most of the ingredients. I did find a way to improvise a Kings Cake. I had some cinnamon rolls, you know the kind where you add the glaze? I turned the glaze yellow, purple, and green and drizzled it on the top. Like a traditional Kings Cake, I put a little baby in each one for them to find. It tasted better than the photo looked. Until next year Mardi Gras!
This came out a few days after I did my Fat Tuesday. The Disney recipe for beignets. I will have to try these next year. It doesn't look terribly complicated.
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