Catholic Mardi Gras Ideas

For anyone still looking for ideas to celebrate Mardi Gras with their kids and families, you've come to the right place! :-)

Did you know that Catholics don't say "Alleluia" during worship in lent? It's totally taken out of the mass and everything. I just learned that last year. Something you can do with your kids is to "bury the Alleluia". You can find my directions for making your own printable Alleluia banner for this here. There's a song we used to sing at Vacation Bible School with "Alleluia" in it. I'm going to sing it with my kids this year before we hide the Alleluia. Here's a You Tube video I found on how to sing this song with your kids.


After you make a big deal and sing about "Alleluia", become quiet, and pack up your Alleluia to bring back out on Easter. You can put it away in a box, or a bag- whatever works for you and your family! :-)

Mardi Gras is also knows as "Pancake Tuesday". It was originally traditional to eat pancakes on Fat Tuesday because making them used up a lot of ingredients you weren't allowed to eat during lent, such as fat. Last year, I made some Mardi Gras Pancakes for our family, and they were a big hit! We'll be enjoying these again this year!

And if colorful pancakes are your thing, maybe you'd like to try your hand at some pancake art with Jenni Price Illustration. Her pancakes are enchanting!

Kings cake is a very traditional food to make on Mardi Gras, and to make your own you'll need loads of colored sugar! Make your own colored Mardi Gras sugar with my easy tutorial from last year.

Find some great directions on making a Kings Cake with Sweet Pea's Kitchen. I saw someone mention that at their Catholic Mardi Gras party, whoever gets the "baby" inside the cake gets to lead the rosary. I thought that was a cute idea!

I don't enjoy baking, so I'm planning on sprinkling store bought doughnuts with our colored sugar this year and calling it good. Lol! But if you're more of a baker than I am, check out this recipe for Mardi Gras doughnuts from Catholic Mothers Online.

You could also try crafting some Mardi Gras masks. I thought these masks from Twig and Toadstool were especially cute! You can also find some printable Mardi Gras masks here.

You could also try crafting some Mardi Gras beads with you children! Find directions on making Mardi Gras beads with paper on Alpha Mom.

Aren't these Mardi Gras Crown cookies adorable?
Find the directions to make them from Disney!

DLTK has a free printable Mardi Gras game you could play

and learn about the colors of Mardi Gras.

As always, if you have additional ideas and/or links, please leave them in the comments! We're being very "chill" about Mardi Gras around here this week- I'm a little overwhelmed right now, and I've been focusing heavily on preparing for lent, but it will still be nice to eat some pancakes and bury the Alleluia. God bless!

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Bury the Alleluia- Activity for Lent through Easter

During lent, we don't say "Alleluia" or "Gloria"during worship. A good way to symbolize this to children during lent is the "bury the Alleluias". All you need to do is create an Alleluia of some kind (like a poster or banner) and then on Shrove Tuesday (aka, Mardi Gras) take it to it's hiding place... then you resurface it on Easter!


I've seen a lot of examples of this idea around the the internet that were beautiful, but as always, I needed to find a cheap (or better yet- FREE) way to do this, and then I found these free printable letters on Martha Stewart's site! I knew it was meant to be :-)


All you do is print the letters you need, and cut them out. I glue-sticked (is that a word? lol!) them to another paper and cut another circle around it for a border. Cut a slit in each side of the letters at the top for threading your ribbon through.


This came out looking a lot classier than I thought it might! And look closely at my pictures- the cutting of my circles was far from perfect! For lent, we are going to wrap it in purple tissue paper, and place it on our family altar awaiting its return on Easter morning!

On Easter, we will unwrap it and prominently display it across our mantel for the entire Easter season! :-)


Want to see some ways others celebrated this same tradition? Check out these amazing posts!

Just Another Day in Paradise's post is inspiring!
What a beautiful job she did.

By Sun and Candlelight will show you how to
make this plaque that I just love!

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Mardi Gras King's Cake~ Make Your Own Colored Sugar!

There are a lot of King's cakes recipes out there for Mardi Gras, and they all seem to have something in common- the deliciously colored sugar sprinkled on top! I personally think that what they charge for colored sugar in those little spice jars from the baking section is practically highway robbery, so I make my own! :-)


Here's how you do it. Put some regular, white sugar into a tupperware container with a lid, and drip a few drops of your desired food coloring into it.


Put the lid onto the container, and shake it until the color is fully mixed with the sugar.

Remove the lid to reveal your very own
(and very cheap) colored sugar!

Voila! Colored sugar, easy peasy!

Looking for some King's Cake recipes to go with your awesome sugar?

Here's a recipe from Brooklyn Farmhouse.

I think this cupcake variation from
Inner Citings is just too adorable!

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Shrove Tuesday? Fat Tuesday? Mardi Gras?... Pancake Tuesday!!!

I was thinking for Pancake Tuesday, why not make the pancakes festive Mardi Gras colors?! :-)

Just make your favorite pancake recipe, mix in some

food coloring, and cook them like you always do!

Voila! Mardi Gras pancakes, fresh from the griddle!

You can read more about the Catholic roots of Mardi Gras here, or see more ideas for Pancake Tuesday here. PS. I'm aware that artificial coloring is not everyone's cup of tea, so if you're not a fan, just disregard this idea :-)

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