Los Reyes Magos

Before the holidays fade completely, I have to commemorate our first annual celebration of January 6th or Three Kings' Day.  For a while now it was bothering me that Nacho didn't get to honor his own family's traditions around the Christmas holidays.  In Spain the 6th, also known as Epiphany, is the day you receive your gifts in honor of the three wisemen who bestowed Christ with gifts. So naturally, the night of the 5th is akin to Christmas Eve and full of anticipation of the visit from the three kings.  Kids go to bed early leaving out a shoe for the magi to fill with sweets alongside a few presents. Now that Elisa is old enough to appreciate this tradition (and what kid wouldn't want another day of gifts?), I think we both realized it was time to start going through the motions. We aren't a religious household so explaining Christ and the three kings is a little tricky. But I guess there's something about the traditions of your childhood that makes it easy to go along with the whole story. It just feels good. So a few weeks ago, we found a Mexican bakery in Corona, Queens that had the Three Kings cake, or Roscón de Reyes, for sale and made a special trip out there to get one. It was fun to see all the people out and about on that special night preparing for the next day. We made it home and Nacho laid out the cake and some very nice scotch for our thirsty kings to enjoy....

And then there was the next morning's surprise of finding candy and presents awaiting them on the couch. Elisa got a couple of small gifts she'd talked about since Christmas and Carolina was happy with a few odds and ends--and dum dums. Did I mention the suckers? Oh yes, we are firmly in the suckers for toddlers camp.  It all started so much sooner this time. But there you go. Candy and cake and all the excitement of another holiday morning, so you might as well go with it. And since our friends Carmen and Leonardo are also celebrating the three kings, we invited them over to have some cake. Fortunately, the roscon had not one, but two kings baked inside so each kid got to be the "king" for the day thanks to my clever cutting and spotting of the prizes. 

And later, Nacho even took Elisa off to see a Three Kings' Day Parade in Williamsburg, Brooklyn which wasn't that great, but I think he was glad he tried. The much bigger and better parade sponsored by El Museo del Barrio in Harlem was on Friday the 4th which made it difficult to attend. Maybe next year we can check it out. But for our first celebration, this was good enough. There's always room to improve!