Dia de Reyes, Feast of the Aha!

Televisa, Mexico’s behemoth broadcasting company, had live helicopter-view images of the Tepito marked in Mexico City last night, at midnight. Hundreds of thousands of people packed block after block of vendors’ stalls, looking for presents for their kids. The commentators called the shoppers Los Reyes Magos. That wasn’t quite the image I had in my head.

I always thought of them as three old wise guys in robes and riding camels with ornate boxes on their laps containing esoteric stuff like Myrrh and Frankincense. Apparently I was wrong. The three kings are guys like me, rushing down the street at the last minute, looking for toys to stuff in their kids’ shoes.

There are two ways to look at this: either the kings are mundane or my life is regal. I choose the latter, with Myrrh, ’cause I like the way it’s spelled.

My kid’s shoes are pretty big, because they’re not kids any more. I could still fit an Ipod or some such electronic gadget in their desert boots or flip-flops, but knowing them they’d probably stuff their feet in them before noticing the Reyes’ gift. So I should go for something soft, like a sock or a tortilla to avoid any mishaps. The truth is, though, that my kids didn’t exactly grow up looking for gifts in their shoes on the morning of January 6th. We did the Germanic Christmas thing, with gifts brought by Santa, wrapped with bows and placed under the tree. But on January 6th, the feast of the epiphany, Dia de Reyes, we share a Rosca de Reyes. Think of Arcadian king’s bread, in Spanish.

It’s best done with hot chocolate, but I like coffee because I’m a coffee-lover. The ritual entails gathering friends and family, or either-or, and everyone takes a turn at slicing the oval shaped bread (ergo: rosca). Inside the bread is a miniature doll that’s supposed to represent the baby Jesus. It’s a prize, of sorts. Tradition holds that who ever gets the baby is obligated to throw a party for the rest of the folks on the feast of the virgin of the Candelaria, on February 2nd. Got that? The problem is that the more modern, and American, roscas have multiple babies in them. We love excess! But that takes the fun and the mystery out of the thing. Although, it does create an instant party committee.

I like this celebration. I like the idea of celebrating an epiphany: aha! moments. The original epiphany, the one that struck the wise Zoroastrians, is traditionally the aha! moment when they beheld the king of kings. It’s a great story, they being kings and all, recognizing their better in a baby. The story goes that they brought their gifts to the baby king, so the tradition holds that they also visit the good boys and girls on the eve of the January 6th and leave gifts in their shoes. Of course, the kids need to leave their shoes in available and practical places, so as to not make the night visitors fumble around the room. They usually leave them in very visible places.

For some reason-and if any of you out there know why, let me know-today is also thought of as a good day to have your house blessed.  I had my first house blessed on a summer evening. The priest patiently waited for our guests to settle, but he was in a hurry because we had libations and he wanted to do the ceremony and get to the socializing. It was a good house. When we moved, ten years later, our then 12 year-old daughter hid in a closet; she didn’t want to go, she like it that much. That was an epiphany, finding her in the closet and realizing how much the house meant to her.

Today is also a good day for reflecting on stuff. It’s a good day to dig into your thinking or move the dirt around a little, and see if you find something, a moment, a proverbial aha! Like last night, watching the Tepito market live from a Televisa helicopter I realized that I’m the kings and I’m looking for the thing that will make sense in a perfect place in time. Imagine that.