Throwing a Mardi Gras Party

If a flight and hotel room in the city is too much for your budget, throw a Mardi Gras party. A well-organized Mardi Gras party has the potential to rival the excitement and mayhem of Bourbon Street, without the price tag.

The Invitations
Before decorations and food, consider the guest list for the Mardi Gras party. Children can enjoy the opportunity to decorate Mardi Gras masks and eat King Cake, but they might not be appropriate guests if the menu includes those famous New Orleans alcoholic beverages.

Once the guest list is finished, set the Mardi Gras mood with your invites. Floats, masks, crowns and beads are all commonly associated with Mardi Gras, but you can't go wrong if you use the colors purple, green and gold. Purple represents justice, green symbolizes faith and gold means power. Then glue feathers on the fronts of the invites. If you have the time and the mailing budget, you could also send along a mask for your guests to wear to the party.

The Decorations
Where Mardi Gras decorations are concerned, more is more, especially when you're talking purple, green and gold. A trip to a local party supply store should yield colorful streamers to decorate walls, beads to adorn the guests and ready-made Mardi Gras masks to use for decorations or to give the guests.

A fun idea would be to create Mardi Gras windows on the walls, recreating Bourbon Street in your living room. Use oversized paper, and draw a border reminiscent of a window frame. Then you can take party pictures of your guests standing in front of the faux balconies. If children will be on the guest list, additional decorations might include party hats in the traditional colors.

The Food
No Mardi Gras food menu would be complete without a King Cake. It isn't necessary to be a professional chef to make one that the guests will enjoy, either. While a King Cake is more like a bread, a simple yellow box cake, with or without vanilla frosting, should suffice as long as you ice it in the ubiquitous purple, green and gold.

Bake a small, oven-safe toy baby inside, and offer prizes or beads to the lucky guests who get the baby in their piece of cake. Mardi Gras lore states that whoever gets the slice of cake will hold next year's party, too. However, before you serve the cake, warn guests to chew carefully. For kids, you may want to bake a separate, toy-free King Cake so you don't worry about their choking on the toy baby.

For the main course, Louisiana cuisine includes shrimp, paella, sausage, jambalya and gumbo. Throw in some Cajun spices, and you can't go wrong. Complement that with the Hurricane, a rum-based drink beloved by revelers.

If Louisiana cuisine and drinks don't seem appropriate or are out of your price range, consider a traditional pancake supper, often the meal of choice on Shrove Tuesday.

The Music
Mardi Gras is loud and exciting for guests who are there in person, and you can recreate that experience at the Mardi Gras party. If you're into rock, add the song "Hurricane Party" by New Orleans-based band Cowboy Mouth to your playlist. If you want to be as traditional as possible, play jazz tunes or Zydeco, a multicultural musical style that sprang up in Louisiana.

The Activities
Depending on the guest list, Mardi Gras activities can range from the tame to the outlandish. For children, decorating Mardi Gras masks is always a highlight at a Mardi Gras party. Purchase pre-made mask kits, or simply cut a mask shape out of cardstock or cardboard, and allow the kids (or grownups) to decorate with glitter, markers and paint.

If adults make up the guest list, play wild games such as truth or dare or strip poker. Have contests, and offer beads to those who wear the best costume. However, since Mardi Gras is a night of revelry, consider collecting the car keys of anyone who drives over, and make sure designated drivers are present so everyone gets home safely.

You can also turn your party into a fundraiser for the city, which is still rebuilding after the damage of Hurricane Katrina. Look into organizations that are still offering relief, and let guests know that you will be collecting donations.

Even if you can't recreate the Mardi Gras atmosphere down to the last detail, focus on having fun and really whooping it up. After all, Mardi Gras is your last chance before the beginning of Lent.