and the sheer joy of the Christmas season went on for a long, long time.
After January 6, children in the Irish Channel and possibly in other neighborhoods too gave King cake parties. A cake was baked with a tiny statue of a king in it; the person at the party who got the piece of cake with the king in it had to give the next party. I associated this entirely with the Feast of Epiphany, but as Christmas season ran into Mardi Gras season, somehow the King cake parties became intimately associated with Mardi Gras, and King cakes are now sold all over New Orleans, and sent all over the world from New Orleans, at Mardi Gras time.
King cakes are huge oval cakes laid out on stiff cardboard, and covered with sticky brightly colored icing. There is nothing so sweet and sticky as a King cake. The cakes have tiny babies hidden in them now, not kings.
The other festival that was almost equal to Christmas in its splendor was the festival of the Virgin Mary in the month of May. Each parish in New Orleans and each school managed its tribute to the Virgin Mary in its own way.
In our parish, the procession and the May Crowning came at the end of the month. On the evening of the May Crowning all the schoolchildren assembled to walk in ranks through the streets of the parish, along with thousands of parishioners. If you were a little girl, you wore your old white Communion dress for at least three years. Girls who'd made their Confirmation wore their white Confirmation dresses each year for as long as they could. The members of various organizations carried statues in the procession. When I was in high school, the Legion of Mary carried the statue of Our Lady of Fatima in the procession, and my sister, who was a member, walked along beside the bier saying her rosary with the other high school girls.
The scent of flowers was everywhere during these processions.
I can't imagine how long this procession was, and I don't remember any set route. But it took us all through the packed streets of the Irish Channel, and I remember one year noticing that house after house had its own glorious shrine to the Virgin in a front window or on a front porch. People came down in the dusk to say their rosaries with us as we passed.
I'm sure we sang hymns too. But I don't recall singing hymns until we all returned to the enormous school yard for the crowning of the Virgin there.
This was done with a life-size statue; and I can recall standing with thousands of people in the yard, amid so many white lilies that the air was drenched with their perfume.
There seemed to be banks and banks of lilies before the Virgin.
The priest would speak a sermon, sometimes a long one, and then the May Court of several teenage girls in lovely evening gowns would prepare for the crowning itself. One girl was always chosen to put the crown onto the Virgin's head. Two traditional hymns were always sung. One was tender and almost sad:
On this day, O beautiful Mother, On this day we give thee our love.
Near thee, Madonna, fondly we hover, Trusting thy gentle care to prove.
The second hymn, we sang with considerably more spirit, and it was during this hymn that Our Lady was in fact crowned with a crown of woven flowers.
Bring flowers of the rarest
Bring flowers of the fairest
From garden and woodland and hillside and dale, Our full hearts are swelling,
Our glad voices telling
The praise of the loveliest rose of the dale!
refrain:
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today!
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.
When I went to Holy Name of Jesus School uptown, we had a May Crowning every school day in the basement, right after the noon recess. Each grade had its turn to crown the Blessed Mother, with the same traditional hymns and certain prayers that were always said.
Much later, during my first year of college, and my first year as an atheist, I missed the May Crowning so much that one evening I bought a huge bouquet of flowers and I went out alone on a grassy slope beside the dormitory and sang these hymns to the Virgin, and, lying on the grass, amongst the flowers, I cried and cried.
In the