Three Kings Day

Today is the official end of Christmas.  The day we celebrate the Three Wise Men arriving to see and give their gifts to Baby Jesus. 

Traditionally, this is the day we take down the Christmas tree and pack all of our decorations up and put them away for another year.  It's also a good day to clean house and organize, throw out the old and get ready for the new year.

Um, I didn't wait.  I already did ALL that and I'm still cleaning and organizing and throwing out and putting stuff out by the curb that is GONE the next day!!  That makes me so happy.  I hate to throw out anything, I get by with one bag of trash per week, and it just kills me to have to throw something away.  It's so wasteful and it just further burdens landfills that are already overflowing with 100 years of trash.  So I try to do what I can, when I can.

I don't remember celebrating Three Kings Day or The Epiphany.  Our tradition was that the Wise Men got to the manger the same night Baby Jesus was born and we took our Christmas tree down before New Year's Day.  Mama wasn't having that tree up when the new year came in!  And I've adopted that tradition for my own home.  I was raised a Southern Missionary Baptist and I just don't remember much being said about January 6th.  Except it was my cousin Christie's birthday.  Happy Birthday, Christie!!  We were back in school by then and life went back to normal pretty quick. 

Although I think we know that actually, the Wise Men didn't get to Baby Jesus until He was a toddler and my house looks like it never had a stitch of Christmas in it right now, today is a pretty special day to remember and reflect on how they must have FELT when they saw that baby.  Oh, can you imagine??