Today is a twofer Thursday.
You get both WOTD and This Day in History.
Lucky you.
Last year I wrote about “Lent” on March 8th. You can see that post, here. Every year the date is a little different, depending on where Easter falls on the calendar. Lent starts 40 days before Easter, on “Ash Wednesday.” Of course, that’s the day after “Mardi Gras,” or “Fat Tuesday.”
The good folk at Merriam Webster have summarized “A Guide to Words You’ll Hear Around Mardi Gras.” You can see all of them, here. My favorite is “fastnacht,” which is Pennsylvania German for “donut.” For the record, “Lent,” comes from the Old English for “springtime,” which also means “the days are getting longer.” Lengthen = Lent. So, longer days, shorter words. Get it? If you ask me this has very little to do – in and of itself – with fasting or abstaining from things. But then, nobody asked me. Still, one donut may be good, but a twofer? Even better.
The good folks at History.com have picked this day in 1827 for their piece on Mardi Gras, which is New Orleans’ version of “Carnival,” the name given in most of the rest of the world to the celebration right before the beginning of Lent. But they could literally have picked any day/year within a certain range of February or March since, as I said before, the date varies year to year.
In any case…
Happy Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and 40-days-of-Lent, y’all.
Before you know it, Easter will be here.
Then we can eat donuts again.
Bonus cookie content:
And this bonus donut twofer from an incorrigible blog reader:
