Hi, my name is Kelly and I write about being a dad. Let me tell you 
Download free ebook
twitter
facebook
flickr
youtubeThursday, January 7th, 2010
Kings Day
Kings Day is celebrated on January 6th, and it is the day children traditionally receive Christmas presents in Spain. The gifts help the children remember the part of the Christmas story when the “kings” or wise men brought presents to baby Jesus.
We started celebrating Kings Day with Alleke last year because we wanted to join in on all the festivities happening around us in Madrid, and as a Christian family, it took some of the pressure off of Christmas Day so that we could focus on the story of baby Jesus without having to worry about presents until later.
This year we were still in Iowa visiting family for Kings Day, so we invited Alleke’s grandparents and some of her cousins to help us celebrate.
I’m not sure if we got all the Spanish traditions right, but we had a lot of fun!
Here’s the recipe we used for our Kings Day:
1. We watched the Kings Day parade live in Madrid by streaming Spanish TV through my laptop. Watch the parade now.
2. We put out Alleke’s shoes with a carrot for the kings’ camels to eat before we put her to bed.
3. Alleke woke up and found that the kings had left presents by her shoes and their camels had eaten the carrot.
4. We read the story of the kings visiting baby Jesus from Matthew 2.
5. Alleke and her cousins opened their presents.
6. We ate Roscón de Reyes and hot chocolate with churros. The Roscón is a Spanish pastry traditionally eaten for breakfast on Kings Day. We usually buy one, but since we were in Iowa, I made it myself.
7. Grandma TG found the prize I baked into the roscón, which was a little silver coin. The person who finds the prize has to supply the roscón for Kings Day next year. Perhaps that means Grandma and Papa will have to come for a visit?
MORE ON: christmas, iowa, madrid, spain, video
5 COMMENTS
Sounds good to me! What recipe did you use for the roscón? It looks like it came out beautifully. We had to make ours this year due to a nut allergy, but ours didn't come out nearly as well…
January 8, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Exactamente igual que cualquier familia española!! Que bonito es cuando hay niños, verdad?
January 9, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Hey Kate. Yeah, I'm considering making roscón again next year because I'm guessing the one we made this year (for 12 people) would cost around 30-40€ from our panadería.
Below is the link to the roscón recipe I used, but I can't recommend it because the dough was really soupy at first and I had to doctor it up a lot to make it work. I wanted to use the recipe from our Cooking in Spain book, but I forgot to pack it in our suitcase. I would really recommend this book for any English speakers who are interested in making traditional Spanish dishes.
Roscón Recipe (in Spanish):
http://www.directoalpaladar.com/postres/receta-de-roscon-de-reyes
Link to Cooking in Spain cookbook
January 10, 2010 at 2:17 am
Hello Friend,
Coming across this post.I sincerely liked in the concept detailed over here….Celebrating kings day is a very simple way of preaching our kids about the religion and the Christ story.
spain holidays
LEAVE YOUR COMMENT
The Book-Satterlees said...
Sounds like fun! In Mexico they bake little tiny dolls that are supposed to represent baby Jesus. The person who gets the baby Jesus in their rosca has to make tamales on Feb. 2nd for the group to eat.
January 7, 2010 at 9:01 pm