Mardi Gras celebrations in Shreveport!

Louisiana is well and truly in Mardi Gras season! All around our base, people have decorated their homes with the traditional Mardi Gras colors of Gold, Purple and Green. Just to explain the Mardi Gras tradition for people not familiar with why it is celebrated, here is this little explanation courtesy of Google:

Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, is the celebration leading up to lent. Mardi Gras season officially begins on Twelfth Night, or the Feast of the Epiphany, and concludes on Shrove Tuesday, just before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of lent. Traditionally, it is a time of feasting and celebrations before the onset of the upcoming sacrifices. In the old days, and to many Catholics today, this most meant the giving up of meat, hence Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday, which in years past was known as Boeuf Gras. Boeuf Gras was in homage to the feast of meat (beef) before the culinary austerity of the Lenten season.

From 1872-1901 a live ox graced New Orleans' Rex Parade. Today, a papier mache symbol of Boeuf Gras takes its place.

We just enjoyed seeing Shreveport come to life and the experience of catching some beads!!