onlinecertificagteprograms.org

9 Things You Never Knew About Mardi Gras

Ah, spring: the season when thoughts turn to love, trees in bloom, and the thunderous sound of a jazz band at 4 a.m. as you try not to fall over from the weight of the plastic beads wrapped around your neck. There's nothing quite like Mardi Gras to underscore just how much Americans like to party, even if we forget what we're partying about. But while most people know the basics — masks, parades, questionable fashion choices — the real history of Mardi Gras often goes unremembered. The actual holiday is a fantastic combination of the secular and religious, and a blend of people and culture that's totally unique. Whether you're a total rookie or an old-time krewer, chances are there's plenty about the holiday you just don't know.

The oldest organized celebrations are in Alabama: Mobile, Alabama, was the first capital of French Louisiana and was founded in 1702. The French explorers who set out on behalf of King Louis XIV wasted no time in transplanting their heritage to the new world, and in 1703, a scaled-down version of Mardi Gras was celebrated in Mobile. Mobile is known today for its huge Mardi Gras celebrations — they span weeks and pretty much define the city in early spring — but many tourists and visitors forget that they're partying in the United States' original Mardi Gras headquarters.
The date always changes, but its placement is constant: Mardi Gras is French for "fat Tuesday," a celebration of the day before the Lenten fasting season. Because the placement of Mardi Gras, like that of Easter, fluctuates with the lunar calendar, the actual date of the party can vary greatly from year to year even as its relationship to Easter stays fixed. Mardi Gras is always 47 days before Easter (just shy of seven weeks), but it can occur anywhere between February 3 and March 9.
It's not just one parade: Mardi Gras is a date, and the entire season is referred to as Carnival, and the whole thing is packed with parties, events, and parades. There's no one official parade, either. Instead, they're usually put on by krewes, whose own rules and memberships are as varied as their costumes and traditions. For instance, the oldest krewe in New Orleans is the Mistick Krewe of Comus (that's all sic, by the way), and they guarded their identities and practices so closely that people would hang onto their party invites as collector's items. They held their first Mardi Gras parade in 1857, and imitators soon followed.
Most of the beads come from China: Mardi Gras would be nothing without the endless strings of beads thrown into the waiting hands of topless tourists. And those beads come from Chinese factories. Randomly, the major producer of the beads used to be Czechoslovakia, but China surpassed them and took over in the 1960s. Millions of pounds of the beads are shipped in every year for the festival season.
Mardi Gras can be the deadliest annual holiday period in Louisiana: Most other states see a spike in traffic accidents and fatalities in the winter holidays, as people travel, or during spring break or related activities. However, Mardi Gras is often the most dangerous time of year for Louisiana residents because of the insane amount of partying that goes on. In 2009, 22 people died and more than 1,000 were injured in car crashes, just during Mardi Gras. Close to 70 percent of those deaths were caused by alcohol-related crashes, too. The season's one big party, and most people enjoy it without any problems, but it also invites an air of irresponsibility that comes with a high price.
Every city has a different festival length: Mardi Gras technically refers to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent and weeks of fasting or denial before Easter. Yet "Mardi Gras" for many people simply means the period leading up to Ash Wednesday, whether it's a week or a few months. Some people view the beginning of Mardi Gras as commencing after Twelfth Night, or January 5, concluding the 12 days of Christmas and entering the period that on religious calendars will eventually mark the death and resurrection of Jesus. Still others view that early period as a general Carnival time, with Mardi Gras proper commencing the week before Ash Wednesday and building up to a Tuesday-night blowout. Regardless, everyone pretty much agrees that anything goes on that Tuesday.
The whole thing borrows from a pagan holiday anyway: Ancient Romans celebrated a February feast holiday called Lupercalia, which was intended to purify the city of evil spirits and increase fertility. As Christianity spread and eventually became institutionalized in the Roman Empire, church heads opted to split the difference by incorporating classic aspects of certain hedonistic feasts into their new religious celebrations. Hence, an emphasis on a blow-out right before a period of Lenten observation and fasting.
It's a global phenomenon: Most Americans know about the gigantic Carnival celebration in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro that acts as a national party before the onset of Lent. (It's also a tourist attraction for hundreds of thousands of visitors.) But that's just the start. There are Mardi Gras seasonal celebrations around the world every year. German-speaking countries call it "fastnacht" and start celebrating as early as January. Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, and other countries also celebrate Carnival (spellings differ by language and region) before Lent, thanks largely to the ancient spread of institutional religion and the way those traditions have mutated to become broader parties divorced of any particular sacred idea, much the way the United States' various Mardi Gras celebrations are set up.
King cake trinkets represent the baby Jesus: A Carnival-season tradition, especially in Louisiana, is to eat king cakes. These pastries are simple twists similar to brioche that are often dusted with sugar, and they also have small toys placed inside. The toy is often a small ceramic figure shown wearing a crown, intended to represent the baby Jesus, a further nod to the religious roots of the festival period. Tradition says that the person who finds the figure is responsible for buying the next round of cakes. Just try not to bite the baby Jesus.