Let The Good Times Roll

While checking out all the info about the 12 days of Christmas, I learned about the period and customs of Christmastide. I actually thought that brought an end to the carousing that goes on from Thanksgiving through 12th Night. Hey guess what? The party is only getting off the ground

Twelfth Night is the first day of Carnival which finally ends with "Fat Tuesday" or Mardi Gras and brings us all to that well earned period of fasting and self sacrifice better known as Lent. You then get 46 days to contemplate your sins and various falls from grace that might have occured during the preceding tribute to Saturnalia, better known as "Hey! Honey! What will YOU do for a fist full of glass beads?"

So don't pack up those 12th Night costumes yet. There are more parties yet to come and survive before we get around to cooking the Pancakes and changing into sackcloth and ashes to await the Easter sunrise.

Perhaps the cities most famous for the Mardi Gras celebrations include Venice, Italy; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Many other places have important Mardi Gras celebrations as well. Carnival is an important celebration in most of Europe, except in England where they merely eat pancakes, and in many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In tribute to NOLA rising from the floods of Destruction: Harry Connick, Jr. with
Here Comes The Big Parade