Three Kings' Day, January 6

Spain celebrates Three Kings' Day on January 6, so we came back to Barcelona from our holiday travels just in time to have yet another celebration.  :)  On the evening of January 5th, Barcelona sports a big Three Kings' Day parade (the longest standing parade in Spain), and the route happened to travel conveniently within a couple blocks of our apartment.  

Here are a few too many photos of the parade...

 Soldiers on horses to kick off the parade...

The theme of the parade is two-fold...first, to present the three kings to the anxious kiddos.  Also, this is the final opportunity for children to give their letters (last minute!!) to any of the three kings, making gift requests for the following morning.  Therefore, there are lots of "mail carrier" themes throughout the parade, such as the ones below.

Mailboxes below...

Here is the first king to "arrive" in the parade.

Here is a letter collector below, going around to the children

 who are excited to hand over their letters.

Robot-style mailboxes

Being the night before Three Kings Day, another theme was "going to bed" before waking up to lots of gifts from the kings in the morning.  Below, kids on the float are in nighttime clothes.

Here is the second king.

Finally, the third king

A rolling bed...it's almost time to go to sleep before the big day! 

But wait!  Something's coming!  

Could it be candy...continuously shooting out in massive streams from huge "cannons"?  Yes!!

The streets were littered with loads of candies, 

and everyone was scooping up as much as they could carry.

The parade is over, but let's play with all the confetti on the street...

 This is the traditional Kings Day cake, rascón de reyes, which as you can see is round, topped with candied fruit, and has a cream filling.  But be aware as you eat the cake...there are hidden treasures...one is a figurine of either a king or of Jesus (the receiver has good fortune for a year), and the other a bean (the receiver has to pay for the cake!).  

So on January 6, Three Kings' Day, we had our second Christmas, opening our remaining gifts that we didn't take on our travels.

Our traditional Christmas breakfast: German stollen (made by my mom when in the States), eggs goldenrod (creamed eggs on toast with crumbled yolks on top), and wassail (a fragrant mixture of fruit juices and spices).