Feast of the Epiphany
Today marks the Feast of the Epiphany, end of the twelve days of Christmas, and Día de los Reyes in Spanish-speaking countries.
This is the customary day for gift exchanges in many Christian cultures because it is the day that the Magi finally arrived in Bethlehem with their totally inappropriate gifts after putzing around for a week and a half because they didn’t want to ask for directions.
[Give me a break! They bring soft metal, smelly tree sap, and bitter medicine associated with embalming to people who could use a hot meal, baby clothes, and diapers.]
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[Give me a break! They bring soft metal, smelly tree sap, and bitter medicine associated with embalming to people who could use a hot meal, baby clothes, and diapers.]
🙂 that made my day.
also, the national association of manufacturers thinks trump is crazy.
In the military when there’s a new birth in unit families you select gifts from a list that is prepared by wives in the unit. That list never included gold, frankincense, or myrrh. As close as it got was Glade and baby powder.
NAM is correct. Many among the elected Republicans did not appreciate an attack on the Capitol.
That other stuff was brought by the other three people who visited Baby Jesus right after the Three Wise Men but, as usual, got left out of the offical records: the Three Wise Women.
Roger that 🙂
As an aside, my Russian neighbors celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany with flashing icicle lights and… rose petals? At least, they looked like it. WTF? I guess I could ask them, but with COVID-19 that entails masking up and yelling towards each other from ten feet away from each other, which sorta sucks.
If you mean our January 6, they were celebrating Christmas Eve on their Orthodox calendar, and they were breaking their pre-Christmas fast. In California they could use flower petals, just like German Catholics do, sometimes making ‘carpets’ for religious processions on the roads. In Russia there aren’t many flowers in January. This, of course, is based on pre-Christian winter celebrations. You decorate with whatever is available. They might spread hay in their house to represent the stable and use a white table cloth to represent the swaddling clothes. In the Russian enclave in San Francisco there are large celebrations.
Makes sense. And yeah, I realize about Russia lacking flowers in January, lol. Though Russian-American singer/pianist Regina Spektor mentions roses in winter…
Candles replace flowers in the winter, especially when near a frosted window and seen from a distance. I assume the roses were red as that is the most important color to Slavs and has nothing to do with Communism.