Víspera de Reyes

I've told the story in these pages before of how, when I was a child, on Víspera de Reyes, in the evening, we'd visit my parental grandparents at their one-story casa terrera with the large tiled front porch.

My abuelo would take my hand and lead me outside, and he'd point to the three bright stars on an indigo sky.

"Do you see those three stars near the horizon? Those are the Three Wise Men, on their way here," he'd tell me, while pointing to what I found out years later was simply Orion's Belt.

With an empty shoe box in the other hand, my abuelo would lead me to the empty lot with overgrown grass across the street, a pastizal. He'd help me cut a few blades of the green grass and we'd stuff it into the box, which we then took back into their house to be placed carefully on the floor of their small living room.

I had so many questions no one ever answered: Did the horses come into the house or were they kept outside, grazing? Did the Three Kings make a huge clatter when they arrived (as I felt they must because of the tiled floor? How could they carry all the toys on horseback?

The next morning, my siblings and I would wake up inordinately early and already overly excited and, after ooing and awwing over the gifts (mostly books and school clothes), which the Three Kings had left at our house, we drove to my grandparents' house to find our treasure trove there.

There were no horseshoe marks on the tiles but the grass was gone and the living room was filled with presents for all of my grandparents' eleven grandchildren. I don't remember any particular toy that I was more enchanted with in all the years we did this, but I will never forget the care my abuelos and parents put into our believing in the magical and generous Three Kings.

In Puerto Rico, the story of the Three Wise Men who came to greet the new born Savior was transformed so that the Magi had horses, not camels, and in the santos tradition of carved religious figures, one of them is always black, symbolizing the mix of races on our island.

Those innocent childhood days are long gone, but the magic of Three Kings Day, especially of the eve, lives with me now and forever. ¡Feliz Día de los Reyes!