Three Kings Day

My husband and I observe Three Kings Day even though the gringo world that surrounds us does not.

Thus, last night I baked him a cherry pie from scratch (his favorite), which is what he wanted as a present, and he surprised me with a heavenly smelling perfume that I'd told him I liked a long, long time ago.

Back when we lived in Puerto Rico, last night would've been a hard one to fall asleep on because our neighbors across the street would have had a huge party for Víspera de Reyes. They would put a tarp over their small marquesina and set chairs everywhere and there would be a full conjunto de trovadores (PA-system and all!) that would come to sing traditional Puerto Rican songs until Three Kings Day was no longer a víspera but had actually dawned.

In true Puerto Rican hospitality, these neighbors, who hardly knew us the first time they invited us to come over for the party, were the same ones whose electricity was restored before ours after Hurricane Georges devastated the island in 1998 (the year Geni joined our family). But they came over and offered to run an extension cord from our house to theirs so we could operate our refrigerator and a fan. We did so for several days and it was a great relief and very generous of them in a country where electricity isn't cheap or very reliable.

Once we got to know them better, we found out that the wife worked in public relations from home, like my husband did, and so once they connected, she often funneled freelancing translation work my husband's way.

I remember the year when they brought a beagle home as a Three Kings Day present for their pre-school son. The beagle, whom they named Buzz for the Buzz Lightyear character in the Toy Story movie, quickly lived up to his name. He barked incessantly and tried to run away every opportunity he got.

A few months into the new year, after an unusually quiet weekend when Buzz wasn't heard, my husband found out that he'd been given away to a relative with a farm. I'm sure that was some happy beagle who got to trade the cramped quarters of a middle-class urbanización for the freedom of a finca.

The humans he left behind were no less happy, since we didn't have to hear Buzz serenading us constantly because he was bored and, good beagle that he was, needed some actual buzz in his life.

I've told the story here before of how I loved Three Kings Day as a child because, unlike the fat guy in a tacky red suit who brought toys, the dignified kings brought books and new clothes for school. Truth be told, to this day, I spend most of my money on books and clothes so the three kings were onto something.

I still have a small, kid-size book, the blue hardcover translation of A Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which I remember finding on a day like today, decades ago, on one of those two large green sofas in the big house across the hospital. I even recall how much I loved reading that story, although I can't call up the particulars of the tale.

During my adult research, I've come to find out that Mark Twain may have written that novel as a colonialist critique of the Hawaiian monarchy, which he had seen in 1866 during a visit to Hawai'i. But that doesn't take from the wonder and excitement I remember feeling as a young girl in reading the book in Spanish so many many years ago.

In Puerto Rico, today would be a day to visit family and to celebrate the beautiful story of the three kings who followed that star of stars on their horses (well, actually camels in the original story) to see the newborn child and bestow upon him his very first baby presents.

It's a very special day with great meaning among us boricuas and I hope to always mark it as such, regardless of where I am, but especially when I am in a place where it is not.



P.S. Today also is special because my brother and his wife celebrate 18 years of marriage. My mom recently asked my sister-in-law what was the secret to their long-standing marriage, especially since we never hear un sí o un no between them when we're all together. "It's that we're still good friends," she said and it is obvious. May it always be so! ¡Felicidades brou!