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Happy Birthday Rita Moreno! The triple-threat EGOT winner celebrated turning 93 years young yesterday, but the party got started over the weekend when lovely Rita hosted a Mardi Gras-themed bash in Berkeley, California, where she lives. In true New Orleans style, she hired a brass band to fill the venue with music, and there were masks and beads everywhere. The birthday girl herself was decked out in head-to-toe sequins: a jacket in the signature Mardi Gras colors of purple, green, and gold, paired with a brown (perhaps mocha mousse?!) skirt, capped off with a miniature, shimmery purple top hat. What a lovely, joyous way to treat yourself and 60 of your nearest and dearest family, colleagues, and friends made at the supermarket. People Mag got exclusive coverage of the party:

Rita Moreno brought a bit of New Orleans to Northern California as she celebrated her 93rd birthday.

The West Side Story icon was the guest of honor at a Mardi Gras-themed birthday party in the Berkeley area on Dec. 7, four days before her actual birthday.

Moreno dubbed the day — complete with purple, green and gold color scheme — “Fat Saturday,” a play on “Fat Tuesday,” the final day of Carnival and the Christian feasting period before the start of Lent.

“How remarkable it is to be 93 and still enjoy all the good things in life!” Moreno tells PEOPLE. “I am particularly grateful for my family and friends who have filled my life with love and laughter.”

Those 60 friends and family members who helped mark the occasion included her daughter Fernanda, former One Day at a Time costar Justina Machado and the Netflix comedy’s executive producers Brent Miller and Mike Royce.

During the lively evening, a brass band played several songs, including a special rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and a handful of guests offered sweet toasts to the EGOT winner, who wore a purple sequin jacket emblazoned with Queen of Mardi Gras on the back.

In lieu of a cake, Moreno had a chocolate fountain with strawberries, pretzels and other items for dipping.

At one point, Moreno, spurred on by others, yelled out her catchphrase from the 1970s educational program The Electric Company, “Hey you guys!”

Moreno also celebrated — and showed off — her Barbie tribute doll from Mattel, which launched Nov. 20.

“I was a girl who decided to go for it, and despite the challenges I faced, I never gave up on my dreams. That’s what I hope this doll inspires in each and every girl today: to live their life with courage and resilience so that they can make their dreams a reality,” she said in a statement in November.

[From People]

She posed with her Barbie, I love it! Hell, I’d be carrying mine around with me everywhere I went if they made a Kismet Barbie (hint hint, Mattel — I had a birthday this month, too!). Everything about this party sounds delightful. Well, except for the lack of cake, which definitely should’ve been done in addition to the chocolate fountain. Why hold back for your 93rd?? And speaking of food, I wish People Mag had reported more on what was served. This is a Mardi Gras theme, after all, and Nola is famous for their food. I grew up in San Francisco (near Rita in Berkeley), and my family used to go to a (since-closed) restaurant called Cajun Pacific, that married the cuisines of Louisiana with Northern California. They were usually only open on the weekends, but would obviously do a special service for Mardi Gras. One year we attended for the holiday, and my sweet, dearly-departed, professor of a father was lamenting the timing falling in the middle of the week when he was teaching. So he said — and this man reportedly took French in high school — “Why do they always have Mardi Gras on a Tuesday?!” My mother and I never let him live it down, but I think he secretly loved how much it made us laugh.

Happy Birthday again to Rita, my fellow December babies, and all the marvelous nonagenarians out there! Laissez les bons temps rouler.

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Photos credit: JKP/Avalon, IMAGO/Jennifer Bloc/Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram