Three Kings!
We celebrated Three Kings this year on Sunday up in Sonoma with some new Spanish friends of Ana's that she met while going to the park with Alex. Believe it or not, there's actually a small community of Spanish expats here and Ana's already gotten to know a few of them. Sheesh! I spent almost 4 years in Spain and I hardly got to know any Americans...
On Sunday morning we got a call from one of them giving us the heads up that they were going to go up to the Gloria Ferrer winery in Sonoma (about 40 minutes north of San Francisco) because they hold a small ceremony for the Three Kings. This winery, it turns out, is owned by Freixenet, which is a very important maker of champagne (cava) in Spain. The day of the Three Kings is a big holiday in the Spanish world, it's when kids traditionally get their presents and the winery had a little ceremony where there was some singing (the first time Ana ever heard the Kings sing, heh) and then they gave out small presents. It was nice, and the scenery was gorgeous.
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Anyways, all of the couples are just like us, one Spanish person married to an American and all living in the Bay Area. And during this outing (there have been others) everyone who was there had children. I have to say it was really quite fun. It's nice to hear Spanglish spoken at spouses, children, by children, everyone. A moment when you think "Ahhh. We're not alone in this madness!" which made it that much more fun. We took off to another small winery where there was some space outside for the kids to run around while the adults tanked up on a locally bought bottle and watch the sun go down. It was a really good day in all, and Alex really enjoyed it (though he's still at the age where he's a bit of a loner, you could tell he was getting a lot out of being with the other kids).
Definitely a nice celebration this year. Happy Three Kings Day to you!
-Russ