Mardi Gras

Held seasonally for the 40 days before Lent, Mardi Gras is the annual Carnival celebration, which originated in Mobile, Alabama. It is the oldest, official Carnival celebration in the U.S. The festival began as a French Catholic tradition but has now evolved into a mainstream, multi-week celebration across the region. Although the area has traditions of exclusive societies, with formal masked balls and elegant costumes, the celebration has evolved over the past three centuries to become typified by public parades where members of the exclusive societies, often masked, ride on floats or horseback and toss trinkets (known as throws) to the general public. Throws include necklaces of plastic beads, doubloon coins, Moonpies, and more