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2007-12-18 issue:

The Millers: Three Kings Day and Epiphany

by Anna Groff

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When Joan and Lloyd Miller lived in Southern Texas in the late 1960s, they heard of the Three Kings Day and Epiphany tradition.

















Joan Yoder Miller and granddaughter Norah George-Miller during a time of reading and devotions before cutting into the Three Kings Day cake at right. Stars and kings are common motifs during this season. Photo provided.

Following their first Christmas after moving to Elkhart, Ind., some friends from Puerto Rico celebrated Three Kings Day, or Epiphany, with a hog roast in their closed garage.

Now the Millers celebrate Three Kings Day on Jan. 6 every year. They realized they were cramming so many Christmases with grandparents and their family into so few days, they decided to delay their immediate Miller family Christmas to Epiphany.

“It really is celebrating the full 12 days of Christmas, which begin on Dec. 25,” Joan says. “It’s a more unhurried way to celebrate.”

The Millers celebrate with the popular traditions from Puerto Rico and Mexico. On the eve of Epiphany they participate in the tradition of putting out their shoes with food in them on the porch for the “camels” to eat, then leaving gifts in the shoes.

On Epiphany, they drink Mexican hot chocolate and eat a special cake with a bean cooked in it. Whoever discovers the bean is “royalty” for the day and chooses the way and order the gifts are exchanged.

The tradition started when their oldest son was 2 years old, so their children have not known anything else.

When their sons, Ryan and Dustin, grew older, they spoke of the tensions of returning to school before having opened their gifts. Their friends talked about what they got for Christmas, but Ryan and Dustin had to wait. However, Joan says, for the most part they enjoyed having something to look forward to in January.

Joan also took a Three Kings Day cake to school to “bring our strange custom into the realm of our children’s classroom.”

They also invite a new family with young children each year to celebrate Three Kings Day with them. Many of these families have started incorporating the tradition into their own family’s holiday schedule, Joan says.

Many members of the Miller family now collect Magi and appreciate the symbolism of stars and light, says Joan.

“The whole thing has been sort of illuminating for us as it has evolved through the years,” she says. —Anna Groff

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