The Mayer Family

Today is the much awaited “Dia de Los Reyes Magos”, when the children of Spain finally get to open their presents. We saved some gifts for today for Evan & Ellie, but not all. Last night the Three Magi arrived in our city, and brought with them a huge parade full of floats and costumes (and business advertisers), and pelted the crowds with candy. We enjoyed watching the parade with our friends Miguel, Margarita and family.

Here’s Evan and Miguel, getting ready for the candy…I mean parade.

Elisa and Ellie

Elisa and Manolo (her uncle…Margarita’s brother)

Here’s a clip near the beginning of the parade.

Here is one of the Three Kings sitting near the top of the float. To be chosen as one of the Three Kings is a privilege, and usually famous people are chosen…like well known business owners or sports players.

Much to the children’s delight, lots of candy was thrown out. We were holding up our arms for protection as it usually came in showers, and was all hard candy. There were “support trucks” full of boxes of candy scattered throughout the parade to deliver new full boxes to the floats that were running low. All of the candy was from some business or another, advertising something on its wrapper. When we asked Evan what his favorite part of the parade was, his answer was of course, the candy.

The parade was quite a production, but full of commercialism, with the truth of whom the Three Magi really were all but hidden. The famous Ronald even made it into the parade. See him here:

Here’s a clip of one of the floats, someone advertising their chicken company I believe.

Today we ate our Roscon de Reyes (King’s cake), which is a special cake for this occasion decorated with candied fruit.

The most special thing about the cake is that a surprise is hidden somewhere inside the cake and the person who finds the surprise gets to be the “King of the house” for the day. Guess who found the surprise in our cake?

-Wendy