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Home Tips > Tips By Category > Tips you can implement daily While its starting day varies, carnival usually ends on the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent. In Ambrosian rite, the carnival ends on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday.
Most commonly the season begins on Septuagesima, the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday, but in some places it starts as early as Twelfth Night or even in November. The most important celebrations are generally concentrated during the last days of the season.
The following holidays, which are all part of the seven days before Ash Wednesday, often have special customs:
Fat Tuesday, when according to many traditions preparations for the parties are made, such as baking goods;
Quinquagesima, the Sunday, when often a break from the festivities occurs;
Shrove Monday or Lundi Gras or Rosenmontag, in many areas the high point of the festivities;
Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras or Fastnacht, the high point of the festivities in other areas.
Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday") is the day before Ash Wednesday, and is also called "Shrove Tuesday" or "Pancake Day". Mardi Gras is the final day of Carnival, though the term is often used incorrectly to describe the days and weeks preceding Fat Tuesday. Carnival begins 12 days after Christmas, or Twelfth Night, on January 6 and ends on Mardi Gras, which always falls exactly 46 days before Easter. Perhaps the cities most famous for their Mardi Gras celebrations include Venice, Italy; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Many other places have important Mardi Gras celebrations as well. Carnival is an important celebration in most of Europe, and in many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Quinquagesima is the name for the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. It was also called Quinquagesima Sunday, Shrove Sunday or Esto Mihi. The name originates from Latin quinquagesimus (fiftieth), referring to the fifty days before Easter Sunday using inclusive counting which counts both Sundays (normal counting would count only one of these). Since the forty days of the Lenten fast included only weekdays, the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, succeeds Quinquagesima Sunday by only three days.
The earliest Quinquagesima Sunday can occur is February 1 and the latest is March 7.
The reforms of the Second Vatican Council included the elimination of this term for this Sunday (and the two immediately before it - Sexagesima and Septuagesima Sundays). The contemporary service books of many Anglican provinces do not use the term but it remains in the Book of Common Prayer. According to the reformed Roman Rite Roman Catholic calendar, this Sunday is now known by its number within Ordinary Time - fourth through ninth, depending upon the date of Easter - or the fourth through the ninth Sunday after Epiphany in the contemporary Anglican calendars, and that of various Protestant polities.
Shrove Monday, sometimes known as Collop Monday, Rose Monday, Merry Monday or Hall Monday, is the Monday before Ash Wednesday.
The name Collop Monday is after the traditional dish of the day, consisting of slices of leftover meat (collops of bacon) along with eggs. It is traditionally eaten for breakfast and is part of the traditional Lenten preparations. In addition to providing a little meat, the collops were also the source of the fat for the following day's pancakes. The word collop, here, is taken to mean a small piece of bacon. In general it is used to refer to a small piece of meat.
The word “Hall” is a shortened version of "hallow", meaning "holy".
In Cornwall, it is called Nickanan night or Peasen Monday (Pea soup is served instead of meat).
Shrove Tuesday is the term used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia to refer to the day after Shrove Monday (or the more old fashioned Collop Monday) and before Ash Wednesday (the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday). In these countries, particularly Ireland, and amongst Anglicans, Lutherans and possibly other Protestant denominations in Canada including Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, this day is also known as Pancake Day or Pancake Tuesday, because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day.[4][5][6] In other parts of the world—for example, in historically Catholic and French-speaking parts of the United States and elsewhere—this day is called Mardi Gras. In areas with large Polish-immigrant populations (for example, Chicago) it is known as Paczki Day. And in areas with large German-immigrant populations (for example, Pennsylvania Dutch Country) it is known as Fasnacht Day (also spelled Fausnacht Day and Fauschnaut Day).
The French also have a festival associated with pancakes (crêpes) which is held on February 2 each year. This festival is called Chandeleur and is a celebration of light (the name is derived from the word "chandelle" which also gave the English word "candle". The festival is known as Candlemas in English). It is thought that pancakes are associated to this celebration because of the solar symbolism of their shape and color. A traditional food for Mardi Gras are sweet fried dumplings, cenci, usually served in the shape of a loose knot (a 5cm wide, 20cm long strip of dough one extremity of which is passed through a slit in its middle.) In New Orleans the traditional food is king cake.
The reason that pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of liturgical fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs may be eaten. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, and sugar are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes and doughnuts were therefore an efficient way of using up these perishable goods, besides providing a minor celebratory feast prior to the fast itself
The word shrove is a past tense of the English verb "shrive," which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by confessing and doing penance. Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the shriving (confession) that Anglo-Saxon Christians were expected to receive immediately before Lent.
Shrove Tuesday is the last day of "shrovetide," which is the English equivalent to the Carnival tradition that developed separately out of the countries of Latin Europe. In countries of the Carnival tradition, the day before Ash Wednesday is known either as the "Tuesday of Carnival" (in Spanish-speaking countries, "Martes de Carnaval," in Portuguese-speaking countries, "Terça-feira de Carnaval", in German "Faschingsdienstag") or "Fat Tuesday" (in Portuguese-speaking countries "Terça-feira Gorda", in French-speaking countries, "Mardi Gras," in Italian-speaking countries, "Martedì Grasso", in Sweden, "Fettisdagen"). In Estonian, Mardipäev.
The term "Shrove Tuesday" is not widely known in the United States, especially in those regions that celebrate Mardi Gras on the day before Ash Wednesday
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