Changes

It's in moments like these that my love for dictionaries knows no end. Today is Epiphany Day. Here's what I found for the definition of epiphany :

epiphany |iˈpifənē| noun ( pl. -nies) (also Epiphany) the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12).
• the festival commemorating this on January 6.
• a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being.
• a moment of sudden revelation or insight.

DERIVATIVES epiphanic |ˌepəˈfanik| adjective

ORIGIN Middle English : from Greek epiphainein ‘reveal.’ The sense relating to the Christian festival is via Old French epiphanie and ecclesiastical Latin epiphania.

Now, I've repeatedly said here how even though I am an atheist, I am strongly attached to many of the catholic rites I grew up with. This has to do with what Joseph Campbell called The Power of Myth. I love mythologies, I love the stories humans have created and propagated through millennia in order to justify our existence.

I've been missing "Navidad en Puerto Rico" for a long time. It is the perfect social expression of our mulatto culture and mythologies and it's nothing, and I mean, nothing like Christmas in New York or anywhere in the United States.

In Puerto Rico we call today El Día de los Reyes Magos. It's the day catholics all around the world use to commemorate the Three Wise Men's visitation of the baby Jesus in manger in the middle of nowhere in Bethlehem. That's where the "manifestation of a divine or supernatural being" comes into play on this day.

On this day we kind of do what anglos do with Santa Claus. On the evening of the 5th, kids gather grass and water dishes for the three kings' horses. Parents put together candy with a little "ofrenda" of rum. "The magic revelation" happens when the kids go to sleep.

My parents loved to get their Reyes Magos on and would go as far as get coconuts and, in an unironic Monty Pythonesque moment, clopclopclop their way around the house while scattering the grass, emptying the bowls full of water and washing down a coconut candy or two with the "ofrenda" they had left out for themselves.

I tried doing the same for my kids but it just doesn't work out the same. For one, all the kids in Puerto Rico wait eagerly for Los Reyes Magos. Here in New York? Not so much. Not even american catholics celebrate the day!

Yet what I love and miss about los Reyes Magos is that it marks the half-point of our Christmas festivities.

Yes people, we Puerto Ricans have to do things differently, especially if it involves partying. In Puerto Rico we don't have 12 days of Christmas. We have 22 days.