Mardi Gras

Here in Louisiana we're gearing up for our annual Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras throughout Louisiana's history has always symbolized the last big hoorah before the start of Lent. Mardi Gras in Louisiana actually starts about a week or two before Mardi Gras day with magnificent floats, school and brass bands, dance teams, lots of music, drinking, and fun all parading around town. It's a time to let loose and a time for decadence. Growing up as a kid in south Louisiana you think that Mardi Gras is a national holiday and wait excitedly for Mardi Gras day to get here, kind of like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, not realizing until you're older that only in Louisiana do we celebrate Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras is also a time for families to get together on the neutral grounds and barbeque, drink, eat a ton of Crawfish and have fun together. In a way Mardi Gras also signals the beginning of Spring even though on Mardi Gras day you can usually plan on it being a bit chilly out or even raining. I hadn't celebrated Mardi Gras the last couple years simply because after 34 years of Mardi Gras, it just doesn't hold that same magic it did for me when I was younger. I do try to make a point every year to bring Skylar to at least one parade during Mardi Gras. This year she has her sights set on the Argus parade that rolls through Metairie, Louisiana. This particular parade is the one that my parents and I would go to every year, when I was growing up, as it is somewhat more family oriented.

 Most of the older, larger, and more popular parades that roll through the streets of New Orleans, while nice if you can actually see them, tend to be so packed with people that their is standing room only with so many people packing the streets that when the crowd moves you move with it causing the crowd to look like a living wave made of people, and while the famous Bourbon Street has never exactly been kid friendly with bars and clubs lining both sides of the street, this time of year the people are  jammed packed so tightly down Bourbon that they are literally wall to wall with barely enough room to move.

Mardi Gras is, in my opinion, the largest party in the world. With the crowded streets of party goers and things that may be going on in your life good or bad, Mardi Gras day has a way of making you forget any troubles you may have and making you want to just let your hair down and have fun. Even if it's just for a little while. As we say down here in Louisiana "Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler" (Pronounced : Lez-zay lay bon tom rul-A ) meaning "Let the good times roll."