Mardi Gras, Martes Gordo, Fat Tuesday, Yum!

Do you celebrate Mardi Gras? We don't really do too much in the way of celebrating the season leading up to Lent, but we do like our sweets. And so, each year on Fat Tuesday, we have Packi (pronounced "punch-key") for breakfast. You may know them as Berliners or jelly filled doughnuts. But whatever you call them, they are awesome. I don't buy doughnuts often. That is my father's milieu. The kids know that when Papa comes to visit, doughnuts will be on the morning menu. However, I always buy Packi for Fat Tuesday morning. Paired with a Diet Coke (my own version of coffee) it's the breakfast of champions. Heh.

Then, in the evening after dinner, there is King Cake. See?

If you find the bean or the coin or the baby, tradition states that you must buy the King Cake for next year's Mardi Gras. Last year Sean found the baby. Guess who bought the cake? If your answer was "not Sean" you win! This year, the kids were anxious to dig in and find the baby. This year's cake was decorated with a nifty mask and the kids were already fighting discussing who would get the mask. We decided that the person to the right of whoever found the baby would be the lucky owner of the mask.

Everyone gripped their forks and waited to be served their piece of King cake. They dug in. Sean jokingly said, "I think I ate the bean!" which led to much giggling and expanding to great exaggerations like "I think I ate the coin!"or "I think I ate the baby!" or "I think I ate the elephant!" or "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" After we had all eaten our piece, we discovered that no one had the sought after baby. The kids begged for a little more to just finish up the cake and find the baby. I relented, thinking that I really didn't want to mess with all of it tomorrow. So we each had a smidge more to finish off the cake. We were all certain that the baby would be found.

Guess what??! NO BABY!

So I suppose that buying the King Cake will once again fall to me, by default, of course. And after two pieces of cake for each of us, Fat Tuesday might just lead to Stomach Ache Wednesday. Or Fat Bootyday.

I'm not sure who was responsible for the oversight. Maybe the pretty mask was meant to make up for the lack of a Mardi Gras baby. And really, when you wind up with a picture like this, you can't be too upset.