It is Mardi Gras everybody.  You know it as that day of the year when people like to test their stomachs and their gastrointestinal limits.  This has become a time of celebration and for that reason it is called Fat Tuesday, pronounced in French as Mardi Gras, which is similar in sound, but not to be confused with, Dr. Phil McGraw.

Possibly not an actual quote.

Calm down.  Please, calm down there.  Fat Tuesday is an international day of expanding that belly to its capacity before it is time to cut back and take it easy on the extras.

The Tuesday just before the Christian Ash Wednesday is indeed religious in its genesis.  The whole purpose for a drunken, merry festival is provided with the intention to eat what you will before thou must fast and be chaste and practice thy solemnity that is paramount to Lent.  For forty days and forty nights, Christians around the world fast in preparation for Easter, one of the two holiest days in the Christian Calendar.  Ahead of this forty day fasting is a boisterous bash.

Mardi Gras just isn’t Mardi Gras without the infamously salacious festival out of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil known worldwide as Carnival, or Carnaval.  That is Carnaval which rhymes with have ball and you should wish them all a happy Carnaval.  That makes sense.  Some of the familiar sites associated with the Brazilian approach to pre-Lent practices are the numerous amounts of people marching, singing, and dancing in the annual Mardi Gras Parade.  The mere mention of this event has the tendency to invoke vast images of a festival-like atmosphere surrounding the meticulously manufactured celebration filled with food and drink alongside fabulous floats adorned with happy hollering and scantily clad party goers.  Fat Tuesday does not fail in living up to its name in South America where the word party takes on a whole new definition.

The boulevard decadence is no stranger to other parts of the globe.  New Orleans has become synonymous in its own right with the happy times brought on by this religious-esque holiday of sorts.  All along the famed Bourbon Street, people enjoy an outdoor festival which also includes food and drink and the occasional beaded necklace, worn for its symbolic representation of flamboyant fashion.

The beads are a way to show a flashy side without having to be flashy.  You get the point.  Take this festival and what it has evolved into for all of its glorious gallantry.  It does, sadly appear but once a year.

Have fun this year at your local Mardi Gras fun zone.  Please remember to enjoy yourself and be safe.  It is important to remember the modest origins of this grand gala celebrated yearly on a Tuesday.  You should also try to save some partying for next year.  It will come around again, roughly the same time as it has this year.  There is no sense in consuming too much that you can barely move.  Remember that no one likes a beer belly.  No one likes it.  Until next year… party on!

[ images via: boston.com, Wicked Good Travel Tips, She Finds, Insider Louisville, Pop Tower ]

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