The Holiday Season Means Mardi Gras Is Almost Here!

Currently, we are in the middle of the winter holidays, midway between Christmas and New Year's. In New Orleans, that can only mean one thing: Mardi Gras is coming!

With Mardi Gras parades starting on February 25th, New Orleans will be a frenzy of preparation over the next few months. The krewes will be hard at work on their parade floats, and bakeries will pump out king cakes like there is no tomorrow.

Even though I've lived in Louisiana for the past couple of years, 2011 will mark my first Mardi Gras as a New Orleans resident. In the all of the other places I've ever lived, the time between the Christmas holiday and Easter felt like a long, monotonous block of work days or school days. But this "dead" period of the seasons for the rest of the country is prime celebration time in New Orleans.

I look forward to taking my family out to the parades and collecting as many beads and doubloons as we can. Hope to see you out there!

 

by Staff Writer Michael Roberts.