Make sure your Mardi Gras party and Fat Tuesday celebration are exciting and enjoyable.
If you are planning to host a Mardi Gras party, you will definitely want to get organized and start the planning process, usually right after Christmas. As almost everyone knows, the Mardi Gras season begins on the 12th after Christmas and ends several weeks later on the day before Ash Wednesday, between February 2 and March 9. In 2014, Mardi Gras will be celebrated on Tuesday, March 4. A Mardi Gra party can be fun for people of all ages. Here are some helpful hints and tips that may come in handy for your party planning.
Mardi Gras party invitations and decorations
Deciding on your personalized Mardi Gras party invitations is one of the first tasks you’ll need to do. Once you’ve decided on your theme, Mardi Gra invitation cards should complement your chosen theme, which is easy to do when shopping online. Also, these ecommerce websites have a great collection of Mardi Gras party invitation wording ideas that will ensure that your Mardi Gra party invitations are totally unique and unlike any other that may be sent out.
When looking at decorations, consider their theme and traditional colors are gold, purple, and green. Balloons, crepe paper, large colored banners, and other miscellaneous items are available at some online party stores. By including colored paper items and tablecloths, you are sure to create a fun and festive atmosphere.
Appetizers, Dinner and King Cake Desert
For light snacks, you can consider spicy shrimp or crab dip with fries or crackers. For dinner, why not make a big pot of good southern seafood gumbo? Gumbo is as easy to cook for a small group as it is for larger groups and it really adds a bit of authenticity to your party. Serve your delicious southern seafood gumbo with rice and cornbread and you’re good to go.
When planning your dessert, simply include the traditional ‘King Cake’. And since making one from scratch can be time-consuming and complex, you’d better just break it down and buy one. Or, if you prefer, you can bake your favorite cake or tasty sugar cookie and garnish with the green, purple, and gold sprinkles. For those who add the baby king toy or a gold coin to their Kind Cake, they will need to alert their guests to help prevent someone from losing a tooth when they bite into the cake. The legend of Old King Cake says that whoever finds the Baby King or a coin on his cake will have good luck for the coming year.
Fun games to play at your Mardi Gras party
There are many fun and exciting games that you can play at these types of parties, some require setup and some do not. These are the details of some that might interest you.
* Game Plan Beads: Before you begin, you will need a lot of beads, so you can include this request in the wording of your Mardi Gra invitation to your guests to bring many strings of beads and hang them all over the house. Also, be sure to encourage your guests to adorn themselves with these when they begin their search throughout your home. Then before dinner begins, ask your guests to count the number of threads they have, and the person with the most beads wins a prize.
* Play the Golden Coin Toss game: First set up a table with ten 12-14 oz clear plastic cups and then paint: 1 gold; 2 green; 3 purple; and leaves 4 unpainted and transparent. Next, arrange the cups on the table in a large triangle, alternating the colors until you have four cups as a base, then 3 cups, then 2 cups, then 1 that will be the tip of the triangle. Then tape each one to your table, adding a few pebbles, marbles, or sand to each cup to keep it from tipping over. Finally, paint five ping pong balls gold and allow each guest five attempts to throw the ball into the glasses. The score is as follows:
* 1 point for landing in a plain cup
* 2 points for landing in a purple mug
* 3 points for landing in green cup
* 5 points for landing in the gold cup
* Gold doubloons: The best thing to do is cover the chocolate ones with gold foil or buy plastic bags from an online party store. While hiding the extra beads, hide the coins and offer your guests a themed gift bag. Then ask each guest to toss their coins into the bag as they find them. Hopefully, you’ve hidden hundreds of these throughout your home. Then after dinner, the guest who found the most wins a prize, perhaps a gift card or something more creative like a t-shirt that you made, or perhaps a light up necklace.
So planning your annual Mardi Gras party doesn’t have to be difficult, time consuming, or traumatic if you start early enough and allow websites to help you. Your totally stylish, popular and trendy Mardi Gras party invitations will set the mood and inspire those who receive your invitation to attend your celebration, especially when you use some really exciting Mardi Gras invitation words, sayings and verses.