In Defense of Mardi Gras

Or, a response to "Why on earth would you take children to that scandalous celebration?"

Feb 06, 2024

Hi, I’m Haley! Book midwife (editor) and author. This email is free for you to read, but took time and energy to create. Consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support this work and gain access to exclusive content:

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Until I went for the first time with my husband Daniel who grew up in New Orleans, I thought Mardi Gras was a season of debauchery, nudity, and generally scandalous behavior. While it may have started as a festival that lined up with the liturgical year, it had devolved into a celebration of sin. Or so I thought.

In my defense, you can find plenty of trouble to get into in New Orleans, especially during Mardi Gras (which, although it translates to Fat Tuesday is a term used in NOLA for the whole pre-Lenten Carnival season). But what I didn’t understand is that there are very different Mardi Gras experiences. One is for drunk tourists flashing floats at night parades in the French Quarter on Fat Tuesday. But the other is nothing like it. It’s about joyful festivity and it is by and large family friendly.

In New Orleans, as soon as Twelfth Night is over, Mardi Gras (Carnival) season begins. You can start eating King Cake (thanks be to God)! We typically travel to NOLA when parades are rolling but before the real crazyness begins (in my opinion that’s the weekend before Fat Tuesday).

If you’re not very familiar with the city and its celebration of Mardi Gras, it truly is a marvel. It almost shuts the city down as 1.5 million tourists show up to celebrate in a city of 340,000. There are many, many parades and multiple parade routes. The past couple of years we’ve stayed near the Uptown parade route and it’s typically more family friendly than the French Quarter parades where more of the tourists will be. At a day parade on the Uptown route you would be hard pressed to find any nudity or public drunkenness (I never have). What you will see is thousands and thousands of families celebrating, as far as the eye can see. You’ll see school kids in marching bands with pride in their eyes after preparing all year for this moment. You’ll see dads lifting little kids in the air so they can catch throws from the floats. You’ll see children who didn’t know each other five minutes ago playing together in the neutral ground with purple, gold, and green footballs they just caught from a float.

There is joy in the air and New Orleans is still a very Catholic city. The Catholic culture of New Orleans prioritizes festivity. With arguable the best food in the world, it checks out, right? This culture reminds us that there are more important things than work. Maybe shutting down a city for a few weeks to cheer and dance and celebrate isn’t crazy. Maybe this kind of over-the-top celebration is part of what it means to be human. After all, true festivity is a kind of worship. It is a gratitude to our Creator that we exist and an acknowledgement that this existence we have been given is good. And when you’re eating beignets with your family and friends and listening to a marching band and cheering as sparkling beads fly through the air—well, it’s simply not hard to be grateful and to celebrate joyfully.

Modern life runs counter to the liturgical year. It often keeps us in this no man’s land between Mardi Gras and Lent. There is no real giving up of pleasures, but there is also no real feasting. Mardi Gras calls us into a shared festival where there is dancing in the streets. At midnight on Fat Tuesday it all ends and the trash is swept from the parade routes and all that’s left is the beads that are caught on the beautiful live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Ash Wednesday has begun and we move into a different season, a valuable season of growth and penitence. But let’s not forget that feasting is just as important as fasting. New Orleans’ Mardi Gras isn’t perfect, but it’s the most vivid experience I’ve every had of a real festival. And I’m glad my children get to experience it, too.

I was asked on Instagram about recommendations for things to do with kids in New Orleans so I’ve listed some of our favorite restaurants and sites. But this is just scratching the service. You will never run out of good restaurants in New Orleans. Never. You can’t go wrong.

Good Eats

Molly’s Rise and Shine (Best biscuit sandwich of your life and I don’t know exactly what’s in that crispy rice salad but WOW. Jury’s still out on the celery soda, though.)
District Donuts
Mr. Ed’s
Deannie’s
Bearcat
Tito’s Peruvian
Cafe Du Monde (Beignets! The French Quarter location is cool but so crowded. Highly recommend the City Park location)
Tout de Suite (on the West Bank)
Napoleon House
St. RocheMarket

Things to do with Kids

The Aquarium and Insectarium
Audubon Zoo
City Park
NOMA
Visit some of the beautiful churches
Go to Preservation Hall to see jazz
Ride a streetcar
Walk around the Garden District and look at beautiful historic houses

So many things to enjoy!

Valentine’s Discount on our Pilgrimage to Belgium and Germany!

I know you’ve heard me talking about the pilgrimage my husband and I are leading with Fr. Harrison Ayre this summer. It is nearing capacity (we are closing the trip at 30 people to keep it small and intimate). But we have a handful of spots left AND Select International, the tour company we’re using to organize the trip (I’ve been on three other trips with them and they are fantastic), is offering a discount starting on February 14th and lasting a week.

Here are the details:

Register for the pilgrimage between February 14th and 21st with your spouse (or a friend that you’re sharing a room with!) and you and your travel companion will save a (combined) $300.

You can check out the registration page: Heavenly Hops Pilgrimage with Fr. Harrison Ayre to Belgium and Germany.