Of all of the things I would have thought would have been relatively unchanged for us during the pandemic, I would have guessed Mardi Gras would be it. Ironically, it was a much different holiday for us this year!
The church we’ve been attending since we were able to resume in-person worship last summer is located in the part of St. Louis known for its Mardi Gras celebration. While the festivities had to be cancelled this year, we did enjoy seeing all of the houses decorated for the holiday over the last few Sundays:
We always have pączki for breakfast on “Fat Tuesday,” but since I’m still limiting my grocery outings (plus we had a snow storm yesterday), I decided that this would finally be the year I actually made them from scratch. It was a lot of fun, and they were really delicious!
For dinner I made gumbo with chicken, sausage and shrimp, plus roast okra. Okra isn’t something we normally eat, and we were a little concerned about it, but it was delicious and not at all slimy. It turns out we were lucky to have it at all, because last week, the produce man at Schnucks said I was getting the first package from the first shipment they had had in over a month.
So, that was our Mardi Gras celebration in the time of COVID-19. Lent begins tomorrow, and I’m not going to lie…I still kind of feel like last Lent never really ended, so I’m not really planning on doing anything differently this year…I’m just hoping that this Easter might actually feel a bit like Easter should!