Kings and Cakes and Such.

Well, today is El Día de Reyes and, as expected, the kings did not leave me any presents this morning. Maybe it’s because I have already had my presents from the fat man in the red coat. Or then again, maybe I was being punished because as the crowds of people were heading to Calle Venezuela where the cabalgata de reyes (the Three Kings’ Processions) was due to start yesterday evening, we were going in the opposite direction. As a consequence, of course, we missed the procession completely but as we have no small children here at present it was really no hardship.

We saw a report of it on Televigo later in the evening and it did look most impressive. It has to be said that they do know how to support local events around here. Just about every child in Vigo must have been out on the procession route accompanied by parents and grandparents.

And, rather disturbingly, it appeared that almost all of those children were equipped with plastic carrier bags to collect sweets thrown from the floats. Many had collected enough to last them for the next six months at least. The first time I saw a cabalgata de reyes almost twenty years ago in Malaga, sweets were thrown to the children (or in some cases it seemed to be AT the children) but not in such quantities. One of the television reporters talked about 4000 kilos of sweets being distributed yesterday evening. It might have been better, although less picturesque, just to arrange to pull one tooth out of each child’s head. You can call me an old killjoy but I did think the procession was all about the magic of Christmas and the reyes magos, not about how many sweets you could collect!!!!

The traditional magic must still be working, however, as the fiesta de reyes remains an important event. It was strange (to UK eyes at least) to see people rushing around yesterday with rolls of wrapping paper and this morning the paper and cardboard recycling bins full of that same wrapping paper and lots of cardboard packaging from exactly the same dolls and Ben Ten toys that filled bins on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in the UK.

Then this morning almost every group of people I saw was carrying a roscón de reyes shaped parcel. The Spanish tradition of taking cakes when you go to visit the family extends to this special cake for reyes. Traditionally, rather like putting a sixpence in the Christmas pudding in the UK, this sweet bread/cake, looking for all the world like a huge bagel decorated with crystallised fruit, should contain a charm which confers on its finder the honour of being king or queen of the party.

The television last night talked about one baker’s shop who were putting 20€ and even 50€ vouchers in certain roscones, to be spent, naturally, in their shop: a kind of lottery where you won free bread and cakes for the next few weeks!!! Yesterday, though, the lady in our local bread shop was stuffing sweets into the roscones she had on sale and told me “quien gana paga el roscón” – whoever finds it pays for the cake. What sad materialistic times we do live in!!