Joyeux Mardi Gras!!
 

Or, if your Prodestant....Happy Shrove Tuesday!:) :)

i thought it meant fat tuesday.....:confused:

It does. It started as a Catholic tradtion of eating as much as you can the day before the Ash Wed. fast. On Ash Wed., Catholics are supposed to only eat a very small breakfast and lunch, a dinner no more then the breakfast and lunch put together, and no snacking between meals - plus, no meat.

Prodestants have Shrove Tuesday...we have a pancake dinner.

am i the only one who will be celebrating fat tuesday AT fat tuesday's tonight? :D

[forgive me, but i'm not terribly religious]

Laissez les bons temps roulez!

Mais Oui!

*

Hell yeah! Dollar margarita's tonight!

It does in French. It's called Fat Tuesday not so much for eating all you could prior to Ash Wednesday, but because you had to finish up all the fatty type foods, milk, eggs, meat and fish in the house before the beginning of the Lenten fast -- those foods were not permitted during Lent. (The Lenten fast is not nearly as strict as it used to be.) That's why in England and elsewhere, pancakes were the traditional food of the day. Better to use the fat, milk and eggs to make lots of pancakes (and have a party in the process) than to let them spoil during Lent.

The origin of the term Carnival as the season and celebration leading up to Mardi Gras is similar, referring to giving up meat -- carnem.

While the French name of the day is Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday, the English name is Shrove Tuesday, because it was common on that day to go to confession and be absolved ("shriven" in Middle English) to prepare for Ash Wednesday and Lent. While the French name emphasized the food eaten on the day, the English name emphasized the religious practice for the day. The difference in names is not so much a Catholic/Protestant difference as a French/English difference -- Catholics in England would call today Shrove Tuesday -- although in this country the French/English difference can in some ways translate into a Catholic/Protestant difference.

Regardless of what you call it, enjoy the day.

I had such a great time in New Orleans and Baton Rouge last year and I wish I could have been there again this year... :( Maybe I can make it out there next year...

No king cakes for me. Just some good old fashioned Portuguese malassadas for Fat Tuesday.

To celebrate Shrove Tuesday, we have our annual Pancake race here against our rival city in Olney England (Earp probably knows what I'm talking about).

We lost this morning though :(

mardi gras mambo, mambo, mambo...down in new orleans....

get ready for the rebirth!

Happy Mardi Gras everyone! We'll be enjoying a King Cake tonight, thanks to a wonderful sister who has a knack for surprises! :)