Carnival celebrations in Mexico are some of the most exuberant you will find anywhere. Carnival is a colorful and uninhibited celebration, an opportunity to express joy, have fun, binge eat and drink, and have fun until dawn. It is celebrated in many places in the Catholic world: in preparation for the solemnity of Lent, the celebration without restrictions allows people to bring all the madness out of their systems so that they are ready for the sobriety and temperance that characterizes the Lenten season.
Carnival in Mazatlán is said to be the third largest celebration in the world, after Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans.
When is the carnival?
Carnival is celebrated during the week before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent, a period of forty days before Easter. Starting on the Friday before Ash Wednesday, the celebrations reach their climax the following Tuesday, known in many places as “Mardi Gras.” The name of the day in French, which literally means Fat Tuesday, in Mexico is called Shrove Tuesday .
Just as the dates of Easter vary from year to year, so do the dates of Carnival. The date is determined by the date of Easter, which is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox (also known as spring). Count six weeks before Easter to find the date of Ash Wednesday, and the carnival is celebrated during the week before. These are the Carnival dates for the next few years:
- 2019 – February 27 to March 5
- 2020 – from February 19 to 25
- 2021 – February 10-16
- 2022 – February 23 to March 1
- 2023 – February 15-21
Where to celebrate carnival in Mexico
The largest carnival celebrations take place in the port cities of Veracruz and Mazatlán and are expressions of the festive and welcoming culture in these port cities, but other celebrations take place across the country, each with its own particular flavor. In indigenous communities, Carnival often takes on a completely different meaning and the festivities can include a combination of Christian and pre-Hispanic traditions. Learn more about Mexico’s varied celebrations and where to celebrate carnival.
How carnival is celebrated in Mexico
Although the celebrations vary to some extent in each destination, the largest carnivals generally begin with the Burning of Bad Mood , the “burning of bad humor.” This is usually an effigy of an unpopular political figure and the burning symbolically represents people abandoning everyday worries and worries so that joy can begin. This event starts the fun that generally also includes the coronation of a Carnival Queen and a King, sometimes known as the Ugly King or “Ugly King” (in Mazatlan it is officially called the King of Joy , the “King of Joy” ) who will preside over the festivities.
There are extravagant parades with elaborately decorated floats and revelers in creative costumes, concerts and other live entertainment, dancing, fireworks, and carnival rides and rides.
The last day of the Carnival festivities is Mardi Gras, “Fat Tuesday,” or Carnival Tuesday , when another effigy is burned, this one called “Juan Carnival,” representing all the rampant party associated with Carnival. This marks the end of debauchery and the return to temperance. On Ash Wednesday people will go to church to receive ashes and abstinence from Lent will begin.
As we have discussed, many of Mexico’s destinations celebrate carnival in the way you would expect, with parades, costumes, queens, and floats, but some other places have very different celebrations, displaying a mix of indigenous traditions and beliefs with the standard celebrations Carnival celebrations originally came to Mexico along with the Spanish and their religious beliefs and customs in the 16th century.
Some of the traditions surrounding the European celebration of carnival were adapted to indigenous festivals and the calendar cycle, such as the idea of five “lost days” (the Mesoamerican solar calendar cycle consisted of 18 months of 20 days plus five additional days). that it did not belong to a particular month and was considered unfavorable). It seems that in some places the celebration of carnival was equated with days lost when the usual rules do not apply. Some of these special carnivals will include masked balls, men dressed as women, reenactments of battles, and other important events from the time of the conquest.
