Fat Tuesday 2022 – Costumes!!!

Fat Tuesday – Mardi Gras in French – splits the city into parade-goers and costumers. Parade-goers go to the Krewe of Zulu and Krewe of Rex parades, with diehards staying for the truck parade. We’re costumers so we spent the day wandering the French Quarter and Marigny taking in all the fun and fabulous ideas people came up with this year. 

Last year was so quiet so it was wonderful to see all the colorful silliness and ingenuity on display. There were a lot of Ukraine costumes this year.

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.

House Floats – Garden District

In the search for fabulous and festive house floats, I’ve already covered Magazine Street, the Irish Channel, Mid-City and the Lower Garden District. New Orleans has been celebrating Mardi Gras 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 promoted this safe parade concept, encouraging people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map. The effect is the city basically looks like a drive-thru parade.

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.

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.”

Floats in the Oaks

COVID may have cancelled our Mardi Gras parades but New Orleans City Park has created a drive-thru parade – Floats in the Oaks – a safe way to see the floats, keep our spirits up, and relive some memories. City Park has gone to some length to recreate the parade experience – starting with circling spotlights, and a bead thrown through your open window as you show your ticket. There were unattended flambeaux poles burning and ladders strewn with beads lining the road. One area’s trees were covered in toilet paper, reminding us all of the Krewe of Tucks parade.

House Floats – Irish Channel

With the cancellation of Carnival’s parades, we’re celebrating Mardi Gras in place – converting thousands of homes and businesses into parade floats. “Yardi Gras” has covered homes in giant paper mache flowers, cutouts of crowds waving for throws, and huge beads.

House Floats – Magazine St.

Mardi Gras is essentially cancelled this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But you can’t keep a good city down – and New Orleans is a great city. City Park will be hosting a drive-thru parade called Floats in the Oaks with floats parked on one side of the road and bands and dance krewes on the other. I’ll be dancing in a pink wig and corset along with my Pussyfooters sisters! Parade-goers are encouraged to costume in their cars so I’m hoping it’ll be a little reminder of the fun things we usually see while dancing past the miles and miles of crowds. 

Lately, the entire city is becoming a drive-thru parade.

Mardi Gras 2021

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Mardi Gras will be unrecognizable this year. Most parades have been cancelled. A few have regrouped, creating drive-thru parades. The dancers, bands, and krewe members throwing beads and masks “parade” on either side of a road as parade-goers in cars pass. With no parades, people are taking their house-blinging to the next level this year. Krewe of House Floats, a grassroots effort to give neighbors a safe, socially distanced parade experience, encourages people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their homes as house floats. I’ve already seen 3 homes done as floats and they totally brightened my days (PHOTOS below).

Mardi Gras = Fat Tuesday

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday in French) effectively splits the city into 2 groups – parade-goers and costumers. The fabulous and feathered Krewe of Zulu starts the parades with an early morning roll across the city. We caught the beginning floats, but closer to the end of the route when they’d already been going for hours. Spike Lee handed out beads as did an entire float of Saints.

We’re costumers so we left early and headed into the French Quarter so my husband could become a wrestling taco.