The best holiday by far (in my opinion) is Mardi Gras. If you've never been to a real New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration, I highly suggest coming down. It's a very family friendly time (if you want it to be)! It's such an exciting time filled with non-stop activity and anticipation for the bigger and better.
Believe it or not, this holiday has roots in religion. In case you don't have time to look it up, Mardi Gras, also called Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, refers to events of the Carnival celebrations, beginning on or after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany (Three Kings Day) and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday. Here in New Orleans we party until midnight on Mardi Gras and give it all up starting on Ash Wednesday. It's popular to give something up during Lent as well, so this time generally turns into New Orleans' New Year! This year for Lent I think I want to give up rest days. (I was going to give up sugar, but I know when I'm in Disney for my race, that will be a hard thing to do!! I am going to restrict my intake though.) I'm going to give up rest days because I find myself during Mardi Gras saying "I can't fit a workout in today!" "The studio is on the parade route so I'm going to get stuck!" "Traffic will be a nightmare!" etc etc. So this is going to be my chance to try a running streak. 40 days of running any mileage I can get in; visiting as many studios as I can and making more time whenever possible for just 1 mile and sticking with it. There won't be any more parades holding me back! I can literally fit in a mile in my work clothes (yay PE teacher clothes!) so I have no excuse. My biggest obstacle during Mradi Gras though is the king cake!! I will try anyone you put in front of me!! They are all so different, so it's fun to try them all! I have my favorites and the ones I won't eat again, so if you need suggestions, let me know! I have tried to scale back how many we get during the season and how much I eat, but man, I LOVE them! Dough, sugar, cinnamon, frosting; how can you resist?!? While king cake is my #1 during Mardi Gras, parade food is also hard to fight off. Usually you bring Popeye's or finger sandwiches and chips out to the route. It's hard to eat healthy when you're stuck in one spot for hours at a time with no where to go. You are stuck in this box that you can't get out of until the parade is over. On the plus side of this, it generally involves a lot of walking around to not go stir crazy, so my steps are through the roof! Running along the parade route is a fun way to get a run in too if you don't think you'll be up for the actual parades. I hope all the locals have a wonderful Mardi Gras and I hope everyone else gets to experience it at some point! It's so much fun and you can find so much to do. Happy Mardi Gras!!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorRachael Archives
October 2018
Categories
All
|