Three Kings Day

Three kings day is a Spanish holiday that is the last day of the 12 days of Christmas. The holiday takes place on January 6th. The holiday celebrates the coming of the three wise men to Christ. Traditionally the night before three kings day, there were prayers, blessed dried herbs were burned, doorways were sprinkled with holy water, and the master of the household would write in chalk C+B+M and the year above the house and barn door. This is meant to protect the house from fire and water for the year. Today many people celebrate this holiday with parades festivals and parties. They also eat special bread called Rosca de Reyes. The bread is decorated with pieces of orange and lime, and it is filed with nuts, figs, and cherries. Hot chocolate is also accompanied by the rosca. In the Rosca there is a little plastic doll representing Jesus is placed in the bread. (Representing that Jesus had to be hidden and protected at birth) The person who receives the piece of bread with the doll inside has to make the tamales used in the fiesta de la Candelaria on February 2. Even Disneyland celebrated this holiday having characters like Donald duck and Mickey mouse in there fiesta costumes. The food carts at Disneyland also shared some of the holiday traditions by serving sweet corn tamales, strawberry filled churros and the traditional Rosca de Reyes. In Mexico, thousands gathered to share a gigantic Rosca de Reyes that was over 740 meters in length and over 10 tons in weight. Two thousand bakers participated in preparing this, using 2323 pounds of fruit, over 5720 pounds of sugar and 1320 pounds of