Fiesta de Los Reyes

Epiphany, Epifania, Los Reyes Magos, Feast of the Magi, Kings. Whatever name it goes by, today is a festa mayor or a pretty big holiday and the day when kids get their presents.  Our town, el Perello has a grand procession that starts in a restaurant parking lot, L'Ametlla de Mar, next town over has the Kings arrive by boat with everyone waiting in the harbor and then Balthasar, Melchoir and Gaspar mount horse drawn carriages to take them through town. Everything is shut down - even the gym, forget the planned workout. For breakfast or dessert there's the traditional Kings bread, a cake-like ring with candied fruit that holds a little king figurine for the lucky recipient or a fava  bean for the less fortunate.

I added a watercolor photo print of the Magi on camels to my holiday collection  (formerly only a Flor de Navidad or pointsettia ) and it turned out to be quite popular with Brits and Catalans alike. The photo above shows the card.  I was pretty full of myself and even gave one to our good friend, Catalan writer and illustrator, Mabel Pierola. Mabel in turn gave me her Kings card, one that was distributed by Unicef a few years back. Hah! There are always greater heights to scale!