Happy Mardi Gras!
And Shrove Tuesday, too! When I was growing up in Canada, the Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday was called “Pancake Day.” Mom would always fix pancakes for dinner, and we’d have contests to see who could eat the most. (Dad always won.) Today, Mardi Gras celebrations are much more common (at least in the States), although Liberal, Kansas does hold an annual pancake race on Shrove Tuesday, every year.
Are you up for more history? Although the first American Mardi Gras occurred either in 1699 in Louisiana or in 1703 in Mobile, Alabama, it’s true origins go way, way back, to the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in the middle of February. The early Christian church assimilated this pagan festival into its own calendar, creating a period of celebration that traditionally lasts from Twelfth night (January 5th/6th) until Lent.
Personally, I love the idea of Mardi Gras–maybe not six full weeks of it, but it seems to me, living in the northern hemisphere (and looking out on a cold and snow-covered yard), that we need a break in the middle of February. Or at the beginning of February, this year. (Mardi Gras, like Easter, is a “moveable feast”, tied to the lunar calendar, rather than the solar calendar. And Easter is always the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the spring equinox.) In fact, I think there should be some sort of celebration every month of the year. Something that will make us stop, and look around, and celebrate life. Something that will pull us up and out of our head-down slogging from day to day and week to week. Something that will remind us that life is to be lived to the fullest, to be enjoyed, to be, well, celebrated. Even the little stuff. Even every day.
So what are you going to celebrate today? For me, I’m going to make much the fact that the squirrels are eating from the squirrel feeder and not the bird feeder, rejoice that my lastest bad hair cut has almost grown out, and that the power is on and my house is a toasty 70 degrees. (It’s 16 F outside.)
