Shrove Tuesday and Carnival

When: The day before Ash Wednesday (the date changes each year)

Shrove Tuesday is the last day before Lent begins. In many countries families eat rich foods such as pancakes and doughnuts, and celebrate with Carnival, so that nothing rich is left over for the fast.

Where it came from

“Shrove” comes from an old English word, “shrive”, which means to hear someone's confession and forgive them. On this day, Christians used to go to confession to be ready for Lent. Because meat, eggs, milk and butter were given up in Lent, families used them up before it began. That is where pancakes come from.

In many languages the day before Lent is called “Fat Tuesday”, or Mardi Gras in French. The word Carnival is often said to come from Latin words meaning “farewell to meat”, but scholars are not sure. What is certain is that the time before Lent became a season of feasts and parades, from the Middle Ages onward.

How it is kept around the world

• United Kingdom and Ireland. Pancake Day. Families make pancakes. Some towns hold pancake races. The race at Olney, in England, is said to go back to 1445.
• Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. People eat doughnuts: Fastnacht in Germany, pączki in Poland (on “Fat Thursday” before). German Carnival in Cologne has parades and costumes.
• New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Mardi Gras brings parades and the king cake, a ring-shaped cake with a tiny figure baked in it.
• Brazil, Venice and the Caribbean. Large Carnival festivals with music, dance, costumes and masks.
• Russia and Orthodox countries. Maslenitsa, “Butter Week”, with blini (thin pancakes), is the week before Great Lent. Orthodox Christians stop eating meat a week earlier and dairy at the end.

Christians differ

Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran Christians keep this day before Lent. Orthodox Christians have a week of “Cheesefare” before Great Lent. Many Protestant churches do not keep Lent, so they have no special day before it, though families enjoy pancakes anyway.

Parts of Carnival today are for adults only, with loud parties. Families can look for family parades or simply make pancakes at home.

Do it together

Ages 0 to 2

• Pat a soft pancake or flat bread and smell it. Say “warm”.
• Clap and march around the room to music.

Ages 3 to 5

• Make pancakes with a grown-up and stack them. Count how many.
• Make a paper mask to wear for a small parade at home.

Ages 6 to 8

• Hold a pancake race with a spoon and a pretend pancake (a paper circle).
• Draw your own Carnival costume and describe it.

Ages 9 to 12

• Look up Mardi Gras, Carnival in Venice and Maslenitsa on a map. What foods and music go with each?
• Write down what your family might give up or add for Lent.

Ages 13 to 17

• Read about how Carnival grew from the medieval calendar. Why would a community mark a time of fun before a time of restraint?
• Plan a family-friendly party that ends before midnight.

A short prayer

God, thank you for good food and for joy. Help us to enjoy your gifts and to get ready, with glad hearts, for the quiet days to come. Amen.

Mark as done

Where this comes from

• Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun (Oxford University Press, 1996), on Shrovetide
• F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2005), entries “Shrove Tuesday” and “Carnival”
• Steve Roud, The English Year (Penguin, 2008), on Shrove Tuesday

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.