Decorating For Mardi Gras

I took down my inside and outside house Christmas decorations this weekend as leaving them up too late after Christmas brands one as gauche. I am many negative things, but gauche is not a, label I seek. Decorating the home for holidays is a tradition of New Orleans and was of my my mom, two forces that trained me to also decorate. In New Orleans, the day after the formal end of Christmas (January 6th) the locals start putting up their Mardi Gras decorations. January 8th is King's Day and the start of Mardi Gras King Cake season.

Every New Orleanian declares Mardi Gras (carnival)  present  and accounted for on January 6th. Yet here I am in Portland, Oregon, a place that has no Mardi Gras tradition, no Mardi Gras.  It doesn't stop me from acknowledging Mardi Gars (I wear one of my Mardi Gras shirts from time to time in public during Mardi Gras and get quite a few comments from strangers about Mardi Gars, New Orleans and their visit at Mardi Gras to New Orleans). Today the Mardi Gras wreath on my front door and the Mardi Gras door mat at the door will let those Portland heathens know they are missing a fun holiday.

Most of my Mardi Gras decorations are what I brought from New Orleans when I moved to Portland, or things I brought back to Portland after visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras since I have moved. But my thrift store habit (I love to search for things like holiday decorations at thrift stores, There is great volume and low price for that kind of thing) brings surprises.

A few years ago I found  a Mardi Gars flag in a Portland thrift store. The kings of various Mardi Gras parades display a Mardi Gras colored (purple, green and gold) flag with the crest of their carnival crew the week before and the day of that krewes parade and ball. This flag was a generic, not an official one, but a beautiful one to displace in my home at Mardi Gras. I suppose a tourist from Portland bought it in New Orleans and brought it back to Portland. Then it would up at the thrift store where an ex New Orleanians found and bought it (for just a couple of dollars, as I remember).

Anyway, I have am decorated with every imaginable Mardi Gras artifact I would want and feel in the Mardi Gras mood. Mardi Gras Day is February 13th this year. Going from one holiday to the next so rapidly makes it an easy separation. I have a few pieces of King Cake in my freezer that I brought back to Portland after last Mardi Gras to attack if I need reinforcement in generating more of the Mardi Gras milieu. To all who know or do not know Mardi Gras I send you a 2018 'Happy Mardi Gras' greeting.