I'm in a sort of Christmasy mood ('tis Advent! O come O come, Emmanuel!), so here are a couple of my favorite city Christmas traditions:
This is caroling in Jackson Square. I and a few of my friends (and the rest of the city) go to sing carols in front of the cathedral, which is lit up for the occasion. Usually the city isn't too touristy; people usually like to remain where they come from round Christmastime. We mainly run into locals. It's a beautiful tradition, and afterwards we (along with the rest of the city) go to get beignets at Café Du Monde, which are ridiculously delicious when you've been standing out in the cold.
City Park during Christmas season. Used to be called "Christmas in the Oaks," but, you know, we have to be politically correct. Celebration is a prettier word, anyway.
The park is lit up. You bring your friends/family, pig out on candy apples and funnel cake (oh, delicious funnel cake), and ride rides. When you get tired of riding rides, you go look at the pretty lights and the traditional train set. Then you go back and ride more rides.
This is possibly my favorite holiday tradition. Since New Orleans is New Orleans and very few people ever leave, I usually run into people I went to high school, grade school, middle school, gymnastics camp, debate tournaments, various community theater productions... you get the idea, they're all here. Most people I know didn't go very far for college, because, I mean, New Orleans.
After Christmas, we have
I probably don't have to explain what this is, but just in case: this is a traditional McKenzie's king cake. McKenzie's was everyones favorite bakery for a very long time, but the guy who owned it died and the people who bought it had some sort of financial trouble... not exactly clear on the story, but the important thing is that I will never again eat their turtles or jelly doughnuts. My life is a tragedy.
I WILL, however, have a chance to eat their spectacular king cake. You can buy king cake basically anywhere in New Orleans, but people who've lived here for a while will walk through hell for a McKenzie's king cake. You can usually buy one somewhere. They're a legend.
King cakes, for those of you who locked yourselves in your room throughout the month of February last year, are a delicious tradition which the original New Orleanians brought from France, though the recipe has been... altered significantly. The original actually looked like a crown. King cake season runs from the twelth day of Christmas, Epiphany (or Three Kings Day), to Mardi Gras, and for this period of time they are EVERYWHERE. In the picture of the king cake above, you can see a little pink arm sticking out from behind the bottom green segment of the cake.. that's the little plastic baby Jesus that goes in the cake. Finding the baby is a BIG DEAL when you're a kid. When I and my cousins were young my grandmother would keep plastic babies in her kitchen and stick one in each of our pieces of cake so that no one would feel left out.
I could go on forever.. one of the nice things about living in New Orleans is there's always some sort of festival or seasonal food or other wonderful circumstance occurring. But we're about to get to CRAWFISH SEASON and it would take me pages and pages to express the wonder that is CRAWFISH SEASON HOLY SMOKES so I'll stop here.
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