Feast of the Epiphany and Related Matters

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, (also known as Three Kings Day), a celebration that I've blogged about in bygone years. I don't have anything to add to my musings re that subject, so please click here to read my former entries and have yourself a blessed Epiphany!

Meanwhile, because there were three kings it's a good time to once again DISPEL (I first attempted to do this here on Blogger in 2011) the adage, "bad things happen in three."

The Feast of the Epiphany 2018

Today is The Feast of the Epiphany. According to a web-page on Holiday Insights, "Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar were the three kings (also known as the Three Wise Men) who saw the star over Bethlehem when Christ was born. They followed it to find the Christ child on January 6th. They brought the Christ child gold, frankincense and myrrh." —  And they did it without mobile phones, contrary to what the cartoon atop this entry suggests.

SOME GOOD NEWS re The Galette des Rois! (It's available the whole month of January!)

Last night I celebrated Epiphany with two friends and one of them brought his chow chow (Ulysses), seen in the photograph above, wearing a crown in honor of the event. You might recognize him because I've written about this dog in prior posts here on Blogger. He is wearing, a type of crown that I have discussed in entries that I've written (in bygone years), that are related to the celebration of Three Kings Day, as well as the celebration of Epiphany.

This crown variety comes with Galette des Rois; a traditional treat which I have served — for a number of years —in honor of this occasion. It had been my habit to get my Galette des Rois at a bistro-bakery just around the corner from me, which is something I wrote about for hometalk a few years ago.

Epiphany, The Feast of The Three Kings

Today, January Sixth is Epiphany, The Feast of The Three Kings. According to a web-page for Christmas Customs and Traditions, "Epiphany is celebrated 12 days after Christmas on 6th January (or January 19th for some Orthodox Church who have Christmas on 7th January) and is the time when Christians remember the Wise Men (also sometimes called the Three Kings) who visited Jesus.

"Epiphany is also when some Churches remember when Jesus was Baptised, when he was about 30, and started to teach people about God. Epiphany means 'revelation' and both the visit of the Wise Men and his Baptism are important times when Jesus was 'revealed' to be very important.

"Some Churches celebrate use Epiphany to celebrate and remember both the visit of the Wise Men and Jesus's Baptism!

"Epiphany is mainly celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox Christians. It's a big and important festival in Spain, where it's also known as 'The festival of the three Magic Kings' - 'Fiesta de Los tres Reyes Mages', and is when Spanish and some other Catholic children receive their presents - as they are delivered by the Three Kings!"

New York City  (where I live) also honors this day with The Three Kings Day Parade which takes place in the East Harlem area. For years I've wanted to see the parade, this year I finally it! The photograph atop this entry features a banner that I saw at the event.

Normally, live animals, including camels participate in this annual festivity. However, it such a cold day that the animals who normally are a part of the parade had to pass it up. But one young woman did a work around and came dressed (in a costume that she made) as a camel, evidenced by the following pictures.

Others came dressed as donkeys and there were a number of folks who dressed up as The Three Kings.

Ophipogon planiscapus to Host (or Co-Host) Year in Review!

In spite of the fact that this past Saturday I informed Ms. Apple of your Eye, "looking in the direction you are heading is far better than looking backwards", I realize that many folks, especially at the beginning of a new year, do like to look back, and I am fully aware that a number of media outlets pay homage to the old year by providing a year-end review feature, such as Reuters has done, and  whose "picks" for the highlights of 2011 may be viewed by clicking here.

Moreover, many of the 80+ things that I grow in my rooftop garden here in NYC have been imploring me to do a year-end review, where they wanted me to highlight the events that occurred within my garden in the 2011 year. 

But now that most of the things which I grow in my terrace garden have been bundled up for the winter — making them look like kids wearing poofy jackets — and they are taking their winter's season's nap (as indicated in the photograph posted above today's entry), I was hoping that they had forgotten about the "plan" we had made (a plan that I discussed in a post here on TLLG, on December 31st of 2011, which is a date when most "normal" folks do, or have done, their year in review).

As you may recall, dear reader, in our December the 31st of 2011 "plan", we (yours truly and the things I grow) decided to start our year-end review for 2011 on January 6th of 2012. However, as you may also remember, when Friday the Sixth of January arrived, all the things I grow seemed to agree, that our chosen date to begin the "review" should once again be postponed – or at least shared with paying our respects to Three Kings Day also celebrated on the Sixth of January.  

New York City's weather was much milder then, so everyone was in a good mood and quite agreeable about the postponement of our year-end review. But it has gotten much colder, and most of things I grow are all fast asleep, so, I figured I could let our plans for a year-end review slide.

"Guide us to Thy Perfect Light . . . "

The other day I came across this card that I received several years ago depicting The Three Kings (or Wise-Men) speaking on cell phones as they rode their camels to Bethlehem. Since I wrote about The Three King's celebrating Epiphany last week on their feast day (January the Sixth), I do not think it is too late to follow up on that post with today's blog entry, and a very short thought: The Three Kings on cell-phones! I hope they had GPS and an ipad too!

Reflecting on The Twelfth Day of Christmas AND Camels Hitting the Streets of The City That Never Sleeps . . .

Today I put my figurines of the three kings (pictured above) on display and invited a friend to dinner, so we could pay our own homage to ring out the Twelfth day of Christmas, January the Sixth: the Gregorian Calendar's Day for Epiphany (also known as The Feast of The Three Kings as well as The Twelfth Day of Christmas). 

To honor this day, in New York City, The Feast of the Three Kings Parade, a parade which includes camels, will march down Fifth Avenue. This is an annual event that I have yet to attend, in my nearly thirty years of living in New York, although the idea of seeing camels march down Fifth Avenue, in East Harlem, is more intriguing than checking out Easter bonnets at the annual Easter Parade down more trendy parts of Fifth Avenue — another annual parade that I've missed. The fact is: I don't list attending parades as one of my favorite things to do; and, although I live just a half a block from the part of Central Park West which is the route for the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, I have only seen part of the parade twice.