Happy Three Kings Day.

Anyone celebrate this? I never heard of it until I dated a Puerto Rican. Apparently, she always celebrated the feast of epiphany. I think it might be most of a hispanic thing. Not sure. According to her, I couldn't take my tree down until after January 6.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

I never heard of it either until I dated a puerto rican as well.

Maybe it's just this one girl running around spreading rumors so she can get gifts on both christmas and three kings day...

Hard-core Catholics celebrate it, moreso in Europe than here. Some call it the "Little Christmas" because they do the same stuff but on a smaller scale. There are masses to go to, of course, plus a family dinner. The actual gift-giving tradition is to exchange presents on the Epiphany but the holiday has become so Americanized that few wait until today to do it. I think some families try to split the difference: giving most of their gifts on December 25th and saving a couple for January 6th.

This is actually where "the 12 days of Christmas" originated. The three kings saw a star shiningly brightly on December 25th and figured something was up so they decided to check it out. It took them 12 days to travel to Bethlehem. (December 26th to January 6th is 12 days). They show up, the saviour is revealed to them (i.e., the epiphany) they give the gifts and the tradition is born. As for where the "seven swans a-singing" nonsense came from, beats me!

Most people mistakenly think the 12 days of Christmas are the ones leading up to December 25th. This irks the devout Catholics, who feel their religious holiday got shanghaied by the department stores and turned into a huge consumerist enterprise that's so obsessed with the build-up to December 25th (so the stores can hit their year-end numbers) instead of being faithful to the actual bible story.

Wow, who knew a heretical agnostic like me would ever be teaching bible study! My grandmother would be so proud.

Jack

I appreciate the lesson. I've learned a lot today. it's all coming together. however, fiscal year end for dept stores is generally 1/31 not 12/31 so it doesn't matter to them. They do this to more accurately report numbers b/c january includes returns. Otherwise they would have to engage in the messy business of estimating christmas returns.

[quote="zogby blob"]Happy Three Kings Day.

My mother also stuck by the tree rule, although she was Italian, not Hispanic.

I tried to get my wife to celebrate it, but she wasn't for it. She wanted the tree down right after Christmas. She did, however, say we would start after we had kids. It would be something a bit fun for them, plus they'd get to know a bit more of my heritage and culture (me being puerto rican, her being "euro-american" aka white as a piece of paper).

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CafeParents.com

Is this as actively celebrated in the US or is it more of a hispanic/latin american holiday?

going by geno, i'd say it's more from heavily catholic countries than an ethnicity.

Being a non-catholic, I was not familiar. Learn something everyday here!

I can tell you from my family, the connection might be catholism, but not all of them. My fathers family was very catholic, but Irish catholic. They never celebrated it. It might be a meditaranian catholic thing and the Spanish moved it to South America and the Spanish speaking Islands and the Italians couldn't make boats, so they didn't move it anywhere. :wink: :lol:

Geno

Are you a southern Italian?

The other side of my father's family was Northern and they didn't celebrate it either.

And it's sause. Not gravey.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."