The Mardi Gras party theme on the Birthday Party Ideas 4 Kids website has everything you need to plan the perfect Mardi Gras themed party! Full of fun, easy and inexpensive ideas for Mardi Gras games, activities, invitations, decorations, party food, favors, and icebreaker Mardi Gras games. Celebrate with this fun theme for girls, boys, kids, tweens and teen birthday parties.
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A Few Mardi Gras Facts
Mardi Gras is also called Fat Tuesday and refers to the events or Carnival type celebrations which begin on or just after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany (Three King’s Day) and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is French and is translated “Fat Tuesday”. Fat Tuesday refers to participants eating rich and fattening foods before they participate in the ritual fasting of Lent.
Mardi Gras Traditions Some traditions for Mardi Gras are: wearing costumes and masks, dancing, elaborate parades, etc. All signs point to the 1st Mardi Gras celebration in the US happening on 3/3/1699. French explorers landed in Louisiana and called the area Point du Mardi Gras. The area they landed near was the current New Orleans, Louisiana. As time progressed other French settlements began to also mark the holiday with masquerade balls, street parties, and large feasts. The Spanish banned the celebrations after they took over New Orleans. The bans were lifted when Louisiana became a state in the year 1812. In a Mardi Gras celebration in 1827 students paraded in costumes and danced in the streets mimicking the type of Mardi Gras parties they had witnessed in Paris. 10 years later the city of New Orleans recorded it’s first official Mardi Gras parade.
Some customs from the Mardi Gras parades entail throwing strings of beads and trinkets, decorating floats for the parade, wearing masquerade masks and eating yummy King Cake. The King Cake is a Mardi Gras tradition that was brought to New Orleans in 1870 from France. The King Cake is oval and a cross between a French pastry and coffee cake. The King Cake is decorated in green, purple and gold. A small plastic baby is baked into the cake and whoever finds the baby is expected to host the next party and bring a King Cake to share.