Joyous parades and parties kick off New Orleans’ Mardi Gras

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The lead up to New Orleans’ annual Mardi Gras celebration intensifies Friday (Feb. 10, 2023) with events big and small. Three parades are set for Friday night along historic St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. They are the first of more than two dozen such processions set in the city and suburbs between now and Mardi Gras, which falls this year on Feb. 21, 2023. A smaller scale celebration is set for Friday morning at Galatoire’s Restaurant in the French Quarter, where animal lovers gather to pay tribute the canine king and queen of the Mystic Krewe of Barkus.