Three Kings Day

Happy Three Kings Day!

Today is the day that Mexican children receive their presents. Not from Santa Claus, but from the Reyes Magos, or Wizard Kings--sounds so much more fun than the Three Wise Men! Santa will no doubt make an appearance in future Christmases in our house, but this year we had an old school Mexican Christmas and made our kid wait until today for her Christmas present. Not that she was aware of that.

We've had our nativity scene arranged on the coffee table in the living room, and yesterday in passing, I mentioned that the 3 Kings would be coming to give presents to the baby Jesus the next day. For some reason, that really resonated with her and at dinner, hours after I mentioned this to her, she blurted out with, "Kings coming tomorrow? Bring presents to baby Jesus?"

Huh. I didn't know she was paying that much attention.

Since she was so interested, I read her the story out of my Bible, then the Christmas story from one of her books. She requested both stories again as I was putting her to bed.

She was really excited about this because at midnight, when Joey woke up (and after I had put out the King figurines in the nativity scene, with her present underneath the table), she started rattling her bedroom door to open it. Fortunately, I got to her before I started feeding Joey. Good thing I didn't try to sneak into her room to put her present at the foot of her bed as tradition dictates. I knew she was a light sleeper, but light sleeper + excited = waking up at midnight. Good to know for future Christmases! Yikes!

Thanks to her midnight stroll, I was able to get up before her in the morning, so I could watch her inspect the nativity scene with the Wise Men in it for the first time. She thought they were pretty special. After awhile I had to prod, "is there anything else here that wasn't here before?"

Finally she pointed to her present and I let her know that it was for her. She ripped into the wrapping paper like a pro (impressive, considering that the last time she had a wrapped present was almost a year ago, and then she was quite hesitant to open presents).

Joey thought the ribbon was pretty cool. Those kings know what babies like.

After 2000 years of giving small children presents, they've got this down.

I spent a happy part of the morning sitting on the couch, watching Clara play with her airplane, Joey chew on his ribbon, sipping a hot mug of ponche.

Three cheers for the thirteenth day of Christmas!