The Think Tank

So Christmas has come and gone again leaving us all a little dazed, a little poorer and, at least in my case, a little fatter.  Okay, a lot fatter.  And how can it be helped?.  I mean with the grand Thanksgiving feast, a bevy of Christmas parties, a birthday and then the grand Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners I figure I consumed maybe a billion calories in the last six weeks.  Not to mention the the keg of beer and vat of Champagne to ring in the new year.

The good news is, we are are all done with the damn eating.  Right?  Well… not really.  There’s one left.

I am speaking of Epiphany.  Its celebrated on January 6th and is known by many different names, including Kings Night, the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, and many others.  It’s a holiday that has largely fallen from grace, but for an awfully long time it was celebrated as Christmas Day proper.  Here in the New World it was decided that December 25th was the big day, but Epiphany still hung around as the infamous 12th day of Christmas.  There are many traditions, most of them concentrating on the arrival of the Three Kings (Melchor, Gaspar, and Balthazar) in Bethlehem.  They are said to have brought gifts of Gold, Frankinscence and myrrh to the baby Jesus, but in most Latin countries they will also bring gifts to good little boys and girls who set their shoes outside the door or under the tree.  And should you leave some hay for their camels and elephants, you’ll get an extra special present from the Kings, much as Santa will leave you a little something extra if you leave him some cookies and carrots for the reindeer.

But that’s not a feast.  And what is Christmas without eating yourself into a new weight class?  As if our fabulous, seven course Christmas Eve dinner weren’t a monumentous enough event, I now find that in order to properly celebrate Epiphany we are not just supposed to eat yet another giant meal, we are supposed to celebrate the whole octivus: 8 full days chowing down on fruit cake layered with whipped cream while drinking a sweet tea thickened with corn flour, called atole.  It’s like an incredible conspiracy between the fitness industry and the heart surgeons association.

So I for one will do my part to fulfill tradition.  I will eat and drink and be very merry this weekend as the last official feast of the Holiday Season comes and goes.  I will put hay in my shoes and set them outside the door and I might even try a sip of that vile sounding tea.  But then we had all better work our asses off in the pagen days to follow… soon enough it’ll be time to waddle up to the Easter table and start all over again.