Though New Orleans is busier than it’s been in a year, Easter had to go without our fabulous day of parades once again. Like with Yardi Gras’ house floats, some homes and businesses turned their places into festively decorated floats. Restaurants and churches were open for masked and distanced indoor seating. Our plans revolved around me wearing my fabulous new hat. A week or so ago, a package arrived with an Easter-bonnet-worthy hat in the hot pink and vibrant orange colors of my parade dance krewe, the Pussyfooters (about 100 women over-30 who dance in Mardi Gras and other parades and serve in non-profit events year round). Continue reading
Category Archives: Mardi Gras 2021
House Floats – Marigny
If you read my last post of the fabulous costumes of Fat Tuesday, you’ve already seen a few of the house floats in the Marigny, the neighborhood across Esplanade from the French Quarter. “Yardi Gras,” the 2021 socially distanced version of Mardi Gras, has turned houses and businesses throughout the city (and even the world) into parade floats. The grassroots Krewe of House Floats promoted this safe parade concept, encouraging people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places, or go DIY, then register on their map. The spectacular displays by float artists like Kern Studios have turned one St. Charles Ave. yard into a circus and another into a jurassic park – with top hats and masques. Continue reading
House Floats – St. Charles Ave.
St. Charles is famous in part for being the grand avenue the Uptown parades roll during Carnival in New Orleans. This time of year, the live-oak-and-manor-home lined avenue is normally crowded with ladder chairs topped with children, ice chests and barbecues, and throngs of festively dressed parade-goers snatching beads, toys and cups from the air as massive, colorful floats roll by carrying dozens of Krewe members scattering throws. Mardi Gras is an act of love and festivity with the members of the various Krewes paying for everything from the throws, floats, bands and dancers to the police and clean-up. But COVID interrupted that act of generosity.
Not to be undone, the city has embraced “Yardi Gras.” Thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city (and even the world) are decorated as parade floats. Continue reading
House Floats – Lower Garden District
New Orleans has been celebrating Carnival in a safe, socially distanced way with City Park’s drive-thru Floats in the Oaks stationary parade and “Yardi Gras,” thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city decorated as parade floats. Krewe of House Floats, a grassroots organization promoting this safe parade concept, encouraged people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map.
I’ve already covered Magazine Street, the Irish Channel and Mid-City. The next neighborhood we meandered in search of Mardi Gras merriment was the Lower Garden District. I loved the giant tropical fish of the Realm of Poseidon house. Continue reading
House Floats – Mid-City
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that New Orleans has been celebrating Carnival in a safe, socially distanced way. “Yardi Gras” has decorated thousands of homes and businesses as parade floats. Krewe of House Floats, a grassroots organization promoting this new parade concept, encouraged people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map. After we’d experienced City Park’s drive-thru Floats in the Oaks stationary parade, we drove around neighboring Mid-City with that map and spotted amazing displays.
Some neighborhoods have chosen themes and we drove many streets celebrating with variations on “how sweet it is to be loved bayou.” Continue reading