Feliz Dia de Reyes!

Happy Epiphany! Epiphany, or "reyes" is the big holiday in Spain and several other parts of the world.

In the above picture (taken in 1996) you can see yours truly and my brother, Joseph celebrating Reyes with our cousins. We are watching (staring intently, more like) the cutting of the Roscón de Reyes, the traditional cake for the holiday.

Why do we care so much about how it is cut? In every roscón, a trinket is baked inside. Supposedly, whoever gets the trinket is king for the day. Whatever that means. That's all well and good, but more importantly, in our family the "trinket" is often money. Which is a pretty big deal when you're 12.

Or 26.

So why is it called a roscón? What does that even mean?

Well, I'm glad you asked. A rosca is a round pastry, kind of like a donut. In Spanish, the suffix -ón, is augmentative. So, if you see a word that ends in -ón, you can surmise that something big is being talked about.

For example, if I say you have a cabeza, I'm telling you you have a head. Of course you have a cabeza, you might say. But what if I say you have a cabezón? I'm trying to tell you that you have a big head.

So, what can we take away from this? That every epiphany Spaniards eat a giant donut. And it's delicious.