what is mardi gras

Mardi Gras is a Christian-rooted festival day (and broader carnival season) that ends just before Lent, most famously celebrated with big parades, costumes, music, and feasting in places like New Orleans.

Quick Scoop: What Is Mardi Gras?

• The phrase Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday,” referring to the tradition of using up rich, fatty foods before the leaner, fasting period of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.

• In the Christian calendar, it marks the final day of Carnival or Shrovetide, the festive stretch leading up to Lent, which itself is a 40‑day season of penitence before Easter.

• In many English‑speaking places, especially historically in the UK, the same day is also known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day, tied to going to confession and eating simple foods like pancakes.

• Modern Mardi Gras is famous for lively public celebrations: parades with floats, marching bands, bead‑throwing, masks, and elaborate costumes, along with plenty of food and parties.

How It’s Celebrated Today

• In New Orleans, the best‑known U.S. celebration, Carnival season starts on Twelfth Night (Epiphany, January 6) and builds up with parades and balls, climaxing in the days just before and on Mardi Gras itself.

• The city’s parades are put on by “krewes” (social clubs) that organize themed floats, throws (like beads and trinkets), and sometimes elaborate masked balls.

• Signature colors—purple, green, and gold—are everywhere; they traditionally symbolize justice (purple), faith (green), and power (gold), and you’ll see them on beads, costumes, and decorations.

• Many celebrations feature king cake, a sweet, ring‑shaped pastry often decorated in Mardi Gras colors, sometimes with a small token or figurine baked inside.

A Bit of Background

• Mardi Gras has medieval European roots and draws on older winter and spring festivals; over time it became linked to Christian observance as a “last feast” before Lenten fasting and self‑denial.

• As Catholic traditions spread to the Americas, places like New Orleans, with strong French and Spanish influence, developed especially elaborate local versions of Mardi Gras.

• Today it’s both a religiously rooted observance and a major cultural event and tourist draw, with people traveling from around the world for the parades and street parties.

Where You’ll Hear the Term

• In some contexts, “Mardi Gras” means specifically the single day of Fat Tuesday; in others, especially around New Orleans, people use it to describe the whole Carnival season.

• The name is also used more loosely for any event or festival that feels like a pre‑Lent‑style street carnival—crowded, colorful, and indulgent.

TL;DR: Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is the last, big carnival blow‑out before the Christian season of Lent, mixing centuries‑old religious timing with modern parades, costumes, beads, and feasting—especially in New Orleans.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.