Carnival 2025: Why is the date of the holiday changing and when does it fall this year?

Carnival is a time of celebration and joy, a popular festival that stands out for its vibrant colors, its energy and the appearance of the comparsas, murgas and costumes. Added to this festive atmosphere are the famous "challas" of water and foam , which makes the event one of the most fun celebrations of the year. It also coincides with the first long weekend of the year.

It is a holiday linked to the Christian calendar as it was thought of as a period of excess and debauchery before Lent, a time of austerity and abstinence . The expansion of Christianity brought the holiday to many places in America, where it was mixed with various local traditions.

Carnival is a holiday associated with Lent , which is the forty-day period from Ash Wednesday to the eve of Easter Sunday , a time of fasting and penance in memory of the forty days that Jesus fasted in the desert, and in preparation for Holy Week and Easter.

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The date on which it takes place follows the definition of Easter . According to the Catholic Church, Shrove Tuesday must always occur 46 or 47 days (if it is a leap year) before Easter Sunday (which means the resurrection of the prophet Jesus Christ) and 40 days before Palm Sunday (the date that ends Lent and on which Christians commemorate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, officially beginning Holy Week).

That is, before establishing when Carnival will be each year, we must first define when Easter will be and this is celebrated after the first full moon , at the autumn equinox in the southern hemisphere. So, according to this calculation, in countries that follow Christianity, Carnival always takes place between February and March , but on different days.

The celebration has its own particularities depending on the country, as well as the length of the celebration. In some countries it lasts four days, starting on the Saturday of Carnival, but in others it can last six days and begins on the previous Thursday.

In Argentina, the 2025 Carnival holidays will be on Monday, March 3 and Tuesday, March 4.