Woohoo!!! Attending Rosenmontags Festival today is beyond description, the hooping, hollering and joy was infectious, and everyone was in attendance, including this American ( I even dressed up as little red riding hood, sans wolf.)

Here is a bit of history (which I had to look up to get a better understanding.) Compliments of Wikepedia

In parts of East and South Germany, as well as in Austria, the carnival is called Fasching. In Franconia and Baden-Württemberg as well as some other parts of Germany, the carnival is called Fas(t)nacht, Fassenacht or Fasnet; in Switzerland, Fasnacht.

While Germany’s carnival traditions are mostly celebrated in the predominantly Roman Catholic southern and western parts of the country, the Protestant North traditionally knows a festival under the Low Saxon names Fastelavend [ˈfastl̩.ˌɒːvm̩t], Fastelabend [ˈfastl̩.ˌɒːbm̩t] and Fastlaam (also spelled Fastlom) [ˈfastl̩ɒːm]. This name has been imported to Denmark as Fastelavn and is related to Vastenoavond in the Low-Saxon-speaking parts of the Netherlands. It is traditionally connected with farm servants or generally young men going from house to house in the villages and collecting sausages, eggs and bacon, which was consumed in a festivity on the same evening. While going from house to house they wore masks and made noise. The old tradition vanished in many places, in other places under influence of German carnival traditions it came to resemble carnival with its parades.

Beginning and peak of the festival season

The carnival session, also known as the “Fifth Season”, begins each year on 11 November at 11:11 a.m. and finishes on Ash Wednesday of the following year with the main festivities happening around Rosenmontag (Rose Monday).

Although the festivities and parties start as early as the beginning of January, the actual carnival week starts on the Fat Thursday (Weiberfastnacht) before Ash Wednesday (in Germany). The big German carnival parades are held on the weekend before and especially on Rosenmontag, the day before Shrove Tuesday, and sometimes also on Shrove Tuesday (Faschingsdienstag or Veilchendienstag) itself in the suburbs of larger carnival cities.