El Día de los Tres Reyes in Triana, Spain

Blogging friends visiting us over the holidays encouraged my spouse and I to start blogs while we are living in Spain for the year (it's been four months already). Our friends' blogs with their Spain experiences with us (and without) can be found at Middlebrow and Dr. Write. My spouse (La Reina) jumped right in (see her blog at Scorpion's Tail), but I am more hesitant for several reasons that I may address in later posts. This is my first official post.

Today (January 6) is El Día de los Tres Reyes in Spain or El Día del los Tres Magos, depending on whose talking. For you philistines out there, el Día de los Tres Reyes celebrates the arrival of the three kings in Bethlehem to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. Obviously, that had to occur after Christmas, hence the date January 6. Here in Sevilla, Spain they take this day very seriously. More seriously than Christmas, in fact. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are rather subdued affairs, without much activity on the streets, whereas El Día de los Tres Reyes is wildly exuberant, with two celebratory processions through our barrio of Triana, one on the eve of Los Tres Reyes and one on the day itself. These processions included marching bands, groups of youngsters dress as moors and magos and floats of various sizes, shapes and themes. Themes are both sacred and secular, with children's films most popular (Finding Nemo, Lady and the Tramp, Bear Country, Harry Potter, etc.). What separated these processions from any parades and celebrations in the United States is the nearly continuous rain of caramelos (small candies) and other assorted small gifts that everyone in the procession tosses, throws and heaves at the assembled crowd. And the crowd was a huge seething mass of people lining both sides of the street all along the routes of the processions. Children, teenagers and adults elbowed and fought for advantageous positions along the route, not to see the floats and bands, but to catch and grab the most goodies. Children ran or reached in front of the wheels of tractors pulling the floats and dodged and ducked between the prancing feet of horses. They were eventually pulled back by an attentive adult when things looked life threatening rather than just injurious. The decibel level was ear splitting and the level of activity insane. Being of gentler stock than many Trianeros, my 7-year old son (El Gatito, as he is called at his colegio) and I could not compete with the pushing, shoving and reaching so we opted for picking candies up from the street and sidewalks. It turns out that this was a very effective strategy because most of the candy missed the outstretched hands and opened plastic shopping bags anyway. There was so much candy on the street and sidewalks that El Gatito even became selective about what he collected. And he collect a lot. Between the two processions he walked away with a total of 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of candy after 2-3 hours of work. That's 15% of his body weight in sugar. God help us!

You might think that such a hailstorm of caramelos might end in a mess on the streets, and you'd be right. There was so much candy on the pavement that the shoe bottoms of marchers in the processions were covered in a thick layer of candy and candy wrappers. The tires of float-pulling tractors had an extra inch of tread made of candy and wrappers. Who knows what the horses' hooves looked like, I forgot to look. It was impossible to walk anywhere without stepping on candy. El Gatito and I walked home as the first procession ended at 10 pm and by the time we walked the two blocks to our apartment the bottoms of our shoes were covered in crushed candy. We left our tacky shoes outside the apartment that night so the floors would not become sticky. The next morning when we left for the second procession we found the inside of our shoes filled with still more caramelos, a sign that Los Tres Reyes had been in the area. We walked to the street where the procession occurred the previous night (Pages del Corro) and found the street and sidewalks clean and no evidence of the chaos the night before. What had happened? The mystery was solved at the second procession later that morning. We watched the floats and collected more caramelos and a few small trinkets and then stayed for the last of the procession. Following directly behind the last float was a battalion of street sweepers with large brooms and candy sucking vehicles that devoured the crushed and rejected caramelas. After they passed there was little evidence that an intense hailstorm of candy ever occurred. But we have the evidence at home, 3 kilos of evidence. And the trace evidence on the bottoms of our shoes reminds us of the festivities with every sticky step.