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Mardi Gras!

If you know me very well then you know that I celebrate pretty much every holiday I can. I love finding out about different cultures, people, and ideas. I spend a lot of time researching a holiday and its traditions to make sure we celebrate it in as much of an accurate and authentic way as we can. I try to find picture books, crafts, and recipes to make it meaningful and memorable. If there is a local festival or activity then we attend that as well. Its great because most months have something going on in them and it makes planning Social Studies really easy.

Mardi Gras was on February 28th this year, although we learned that the celebrations, feasts, and merry making typically start about 2 weeks before the day on the calendar going all the way through Mardi Gras and ending on Ash Wednesday . We had our party on the 28th but took a few days before to learn about it and get ready.

I added some really great books to my holiday collection. I realized that I didn't have any books about Mardi Gras so I Googled and read reviews and settled on 2 books that sounded like they would give the meaning of the traditions of Mardi Gras and help explain the holiday as well as the cultural meaning behind some of the traditions. The books I got were really great and encouraged great conversation. I love a beautiful picture book that inspires curiosity and makes them want to learn more.



I also found a couple books at the library that talked about traditional Louisiana food. They didn't have information about Mardi Gras in them but it was nice to have a few books that talked about Louisiana and the cuisine since that's where we were focusing our Mardi Gras lesson. We talked about how other countries celebrated Mardi Gras and Carnival, but our focus was New Orleans. A quick internet search brought me to a you tube reading of these 2 books which are songs. When I read them I didn't know the tunes so we had to find out what they were. 


  
We started the Sunday before by making Mickey Beignets. I know its not traditional but I wanted to make them like the ones we had in Disneyland on our last trip. My daughter couldn't have them due to her allergies so I thought it would be fun to make some for her. I even used the recipe from this website that claims it is the one Disneyland uses. I used Ener-G egg replacer to replace the egg and it worked great.




Then we served them in paper bags with powdered sugar... Disney style! The kids loved them as you can see by the very happy faces. They only get donuts once a year on Mardi Gras.




My husband and I had ours on a plate complete with a café au lait.


On Mardi Gras Day we started the day by reading some of our books and doing a coloring page I found on the Crayola website. We then went out with our friends for a bit to do our weekly nature hike. When we came home we turned on Spotify and found some great Mardi Gras Jazz music and made our Cajun inspired Jambalaya dish.


I also made Mini king cakes. This year I kept it simple by using refrigerator cinnamon roll dough. I did make my own colored sugar since it is hard to find nut free sprinkles. We didn't have a baby but my daughter had a little figurine that stood in for it. I had my husband stick it in one of the cakes after they were cooked and cooled. Then I served one to everyone so no one would know who had the baby. 



My son found the baby as you can see by his very large forced smile. He was a little confused as to why it was in there. We had so much fun and cant wait to celebrate again next year. Laissez les bon temps roulez!!  
  



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