Celebrate Mardi Gras with fun customizable backgrounds and wallpapers
Mardi Gras may be known for its beads, booze, and baby cake, but we’re here to jazz up your day-to-day with fun and colorful wallpapers and backgrounds for your phone or computer that show off the lively sense of the season. Read on to find out more about the holiday and how you can celebrate with Adobe Express.
What is Mardi Gras?
First brought to the United States by early French colonizers of Louisiana, Mardi Gras is a celebration centered on the beginning of Lent, a Christian observance that lasts 40 days and is marked by sacrifice and Spartan living. However, like with many Christian holidays, Mardi Gras has heavy ties to Pagan celebrations that existed to herald the start of spring, far before Catholicism spread throughout Europe.
Due to its positioning in the calendar, Mardi Gras is meant to be a reprieve from rules, a time to celebrate excess and debauchery, but also simply being alive. Many of its traditions center around pageantry, like big parades and shiny costumes, as well as sweets, like king cake and beignets.
What are Mardi Gras colors?
The traditional colors used in celebrating Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold, each of which have their own specific meaning. Purple represents justice, green represents faith, and gold represents power. Officially chosen for the first Rex parade of 1892, these colors were meant to be paired together for the King of the Carnival’s coat of arms, a reference to the medieval days of heraldry.
How to celebrate Mardi Gras
Though first recorded in 1699, Mardi Gras has continued to change with every passing year, and there is no shortage of ways to celebrate this jubilant holiday. We suggest the following to spice up your winter and bring spring into your life a little bit early.
- Parade viewing
- If you live near a place like New Orleans that already has established city traditions, then you’re in luck. Otherwise, you could organize your own neighborhood parade, or invite people over for a televised Mardi Gras parade viewing.
- House party
- Throw a party with your own house krewe! You could gather together to make fun invitations, paint faces, host live music or clown acts, and create special food for the occasion.
- King cake surprise
- The number one Mardi Gras dessert is king cake, a colorful cake with a tiny baby figurine hidden inside. Whoever finds the baby, known as a fève and meant to represent Jesus Christ as a child, wins a prize.
- Costume-making contest or or beaded craft exchange
- Compete for who has the most Mardi Gras fever with a costume contest rife with show-off pageantry, or craft something wild with Mardi Gras beads. The winner takes home all the beads!
Mardi Gras backgrounds and wallpapers
Get into the spirit of the holiday season with these Mardi Gras wallpapers and backgrounds for your phone, computer, or tablet. Share your favorite traditions with your friends and coworkers through these vibrant Mardi Gras colors that will popping off your screen.
Free Adobe Express Mardi Gras templates
Show off your festive Mardi Gras spirit by customizing these colorful wallpapers and backgrounds for your phone and computer with these free customizable templates from Adobe Express.
