December 28th is 'Día de los santos inocentes' or 'Day of the Innocent Saints' and is very like Aprils Fools Day in the UK and USA. People try to trick each other into believing silly stories and jokes. Newspapers and TV stations also run silly stories. If you trick someone, you can call them 'Inocente, inocente' which means 'innocent, innocent'. 28th December is when people all over the world remember the babies that were killed on the orders of King Herod when he was trying to kill the baby Jesus.
Apart from Christmas, there is another festival that is celebrated in Spain that is about the Christmas Story. It is called Epiphany or Kings' Day and is celebrated on 6th January. This is the twelfth night after Christmas. In Spanish, Epiphany is called 'Fiesta de Los tres Reyes Magos': in English this means 'The festival of the three Magic Kings'. Epiphany celebrates when the Kings or Wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus.
Children have some presents on Christmas Day, but most are opened at Epiphany. Some children believe that the Kings bring presents to them at Epiphany. They write letters to the Kings on Boxing Day, December 26th, asking for toys and presents. And on Epiphany Eve (January 5th) they leave shoes on windowsills or balconies or under the Christmas Tree to be filled with presents. Gifts are often left by children for the Kings, a class of Cognac for each King, a satsuma and some walnuts. Sometimes a bucket of water is left for the camels that bring the Kings! If the children have been bad, the Kings might leave pieces of coal made out of sugar in the presents!
Some big towns and cities have Epiphany Parades with each King having a big float that is shaped like a camel. Sometimes there are also real camels in the parade. The Three Kings in the the Spanish Epiphany are:
• Gaspar, who has brown hair and a brown beard (or no beard!) and wears a green cloak and a gold crown with green jewels on it. He is the King of Sheba. Gaspar represents the Frankincense brought to Jesus. Frankincense is sometimes used in worship in Churches and showed that people worship Jesus.
• Melchior, who has long white hair and a white beard and wears a gold cloak. He is the King of Arabia. Melchior represents the Gold brought to Jesus. Gold is associated with Kings and Christians believe that Jesus is the King of Kings.
• Balthazar, who has black skin and a black beard (or no beard!) and wears a purple cloak. He is the King of Tarse and Egypt. Balthazar represents the gift of Myrrh that was brought to Jesus. Myrrh is a perfume that is put on dead bodies to make them smell nice and showed that Jesus would suffer and die.
A special cake called 'Roscón' is eaten at Epiphany. Roscón means 'ring shape roll'. It is very doughy and is bought from a bakery on Epiphany morning. Roscón can be filled with cream or chocolate and contain a little gift.
Personal Experience:
After Christmas and New Years my holiday was abruptly coming to an end. I was preparing for the start of a new semester at work as well as spending as much time enjoying what was left of my vacation. 'Día de los Santos Inocentes' passed without my knowledge. I watched the news the next day as they reviewed some of the celebrity pranks that had occurred. Then I remembered but wasn’t bothered either way.
Los Reyes Magos is a very important holiday here so I anticipated celebrating it in some way. The night before was a huge parade covering half the city; so, a few of teacher’s and I went to watch it then out for a few drinks later that night to watch an important ‘futbol’ match. The days surrounding, I walked around the main center of Madrid and looked at all the decorations and street performers that had all the children eagerly anticipating the 3 King’s arrival. However, my first work meeting of the year was the actual night of the holiday. So I missed most of my roommates’ celebration with the 'Roscón'.
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