Today the saint's day for Gaspar, Melchor and Balthazar are celebrated. These should be recognizable as the Three Kings or Magi and of course today is the Feast of the Epiphany. Here Epiphany is a big deal, and it used to be the bigger day for giving gifts to kids before the commercial tentacles of Christmas spread themselves around. Those tentacles I suppose are not all bad.
A number of houses in Xico have chains of very pretty stars hanging out front I am guessing to mark the star that guided the Magi to the baby Jesus.
Anyway, yesterday I had to go to that bastion of commercialism, Costco (well, I didn't have to, I never have to) and lo and behold they were handing out free toys for Ephiphany. And today our neighbors and the local doctora Veronica are handing out toys in our Colonia.
The feast is also celebrated with a big ring-shaped cake, the rosca del reyes, or king's crown, in which, if I'm not mistaken, a small plastic (these days) baby is hidden so you have to be careful not to chomp down too hard. If you are the one to encounter the baby, you have to have the feast next year. Only people of faith are supposed to be able to find it.
Other saints whose days are celebrated today are James, Frederic and Aparicio. Tomorrow Raymond, Virginia, Albert, Theodore, Edward and Julian are commemorated.
As sual, I don't know the English analoges for all the names, this time for Aparicio.