Three Kings. Eight Reindeer. Twelve Days. Or What You Will.

Having ranted about the Christmas Fat Man, I thought I should fulfill my promise, and write about the Reyes Magos.

Christmas is over, and New Year's is passed, and in days of old I would be back at work today, as it's January 2.  But while today is kind of sort of technically not a holiday, anyone with children or teachers in the family still has this week off (ah, the tyranny of the school calendar), because nothing will happen or can happen until January 6, Three Kings Day.

The Reyes Magos (or "wise kings" as one Spaniard I know quaintly referred to them in English) have been appearing everywhere in Madrid on their long ride to bring gifts, possibly to el niño Jesus, but definitely (with the enthusiastic help of the Corte Inglés department store and many smaller merchants) to Spanish children (and preferably from the point of view of the merchants) adults as well.  Even with some exposure via Puerto Rico, the ongoing advertising frenzy here is really impressive.  There are already big bleachers set up all along the Paseo de la Castellana (like those set up for the Thanksgiving Day Parade on Central Park West in New York) in preparation for their grand arrival in Madrid this Friday (obviously they have to stop in Madrid Friday in order to get to Bethlehem by Saturday) in a Cabalgata (or more properly camel-gata), officially devoted to celebrating "the power of imagination and creativity."  I understand people are encouraged to arrive at least six hours early to see the parade from a good vantage point.  Fortunately, there are also local parades in other parts of Madrid.  I may check out the Carabanchel one, which parades down General Ricardos, which is conveniently within walking distance of my apartment, and which thanks to a relatively large contingent of non-Catholics in the neighborhood may be less well attended.  Will share photos if I end up going.

 The Three Kings meanwhile have been appearing in various forms not only in the incredibly diverse and widespread belenes across the city, but on posters reminding you to use public transit whenever possible.  The Madrid metro apparently thinks the Reyes travel by metro, not camel.  (These posters are actually part of a general ad campaign to increase metro use, with various ordinary people saying "soy parte de un movimiento para el transporte sostenible" and similar.)

The other day I saw a pair of small children plaster themselves against the poster of the Reyes together (at my home metro stop), and carefully try to identify them, with a small boy tapping each one in turn and saying to his sister.  "Baltasar es el negrito.  Y Gaspar es el marroncito."  I will have much more to say about weird stuff regarding Christmas and race in a later entry.  (All of Europe seems to be dreaming of a white supremacist Christmas.  Or possibly Carnival.)  But this was a relatively benign identification, partly because the photo involved is (I think) relatively benign.  I give the current mayor of Madrid and her administration due credit for taking the simple route when confronted with protests about blackface during the Cabalgata de Reyes.  Rather than howling about how it wasn't really offensive they just said "ok, we'll cast a Black actor as Balthasar, and that way more children in Madrid will feel included."  End of problem.  "Así de simple," as the very excellent organization Afroféminas put it.  It's horrifying that it took until 2014 or thereabouts, but at least at the moment Madrid seems to have quietly ended that particular poison.  (I wondered a bit about none of the authors I'm researching mentioning it, but Schomburg and Wright were here in the summer, and Langston Hughes was here during the Civil War, when aside from the government trying to diligently suppress religious customs, no one in their right mind would have gathered on a main avenue of the city for several hours, because it would have been asking to have the crowd bombed, and possibly strafed.  And Peterson just didn't leave enough documentation.  Sigh.)

As if to confirm that the Reyes are indeed committed to public transit, there is a giant and elaborate Belén at the metro entrance to Barajas airport, where due to the unfortunate placement of the flight monitors roughly where the star of Bethlehem should be, it looks as if the Reyes are checking their departure gate.

The Reyes at Barajas airport.  Hopefully they've left enough time to get through security dressed like that.

Pretty much every store has a more or less elaborate Belén displayed in its window, as Christmas trees are in other parts of the world, and all of the bazaars and department stores and so on sell both individual figurines and basic sets.  I have learned that the actual Nativity scene is called "el misterio" and that it involves only the Virgin, the infant Jesus, San José, the angel (Gabriel, I'm assuming?), and for some reason an ox and an ass.  (You need the non-humans there as witnesses, but I'm not sure why.)  But that's like the basic lego set.  Nobody does just that.  The Three Kings are not technically part of El misterio, but they're a usual addition.  Beyond that, as both old and new friends have explained to me, personal Belenes in private homes tend to gradually expand over the years as people add more and more figurines, and combine them.  One set of Madrid friends has three generations of figurines going back to the 1950s, and as far forward as the present and tracks the progress of Spain by looking at the price stickers on the bottom of said figurines.  (The ones from the fifties are 1 peseta fifty cents.  By the 1990s they're 200 pesetas  The most recent have gone back to the 1.50-2.00 euro range.)  They also have made their Belén international by sticking little souvenir houses from their various travels along the camel route, so the Reyes pass along a painted backdrop of palm trees, with French boulangerie, Dutch canal houses with step-like roofs, traditional Asturian farmhouses, and so on.

Catalan belenes traditionally include (along with the more usual figures of bakers, blacksmiths, fruitsellers, and so on) a little figure called the caganet (roughly "little pooper"), squatting down with its trousers around its ankles in one corner.  According to an article in El País this year's best selling caganet figure had the face of the chief of the Catalan Mossos d'Escuadra, who was widely criticized for his handling (or non-handling) of the independence referendum in October.  That is, first he was criticized by the anti-independence people for not stopping the referendum.  Then the pro-independence people criticized him for accepting that he was fired when the central government suspended Catalonia's autonomy, since they apparently hoped he was going to lead the Mossos to armed rebellion.  Not sure which group was driving sales of his image as the caganet, but the moral of the story is that if you publicly screw up politically in October, you will be shown shitting in lots of belenes in December.

"Climb, Santa, Climb!"

As in Puerto Rico, there has been some contamination of the Christmas Fat Man here, but pretty much the Reyes Magos are holding their own.  Part of the problem is that (unlike in more northerly parts of the world) houses here traditionally don't have chimneys, since heating is a relatively recent and wimpy innovation of prosperity, and even in the north there isn't generally enough snow to make "sleigh" really a concept, with or without reindeer.  In the absence of chimneys, both the Reyes and the Christmas Fat Man are forced into the undignified role of housebreakers, as the following pictures from my neighborhood demonstrate.

I particularly like it that Santa has a little knapsack (presumably for presents), so he looks like a hiker.  I also think the little rope ladders are adorable.  I wonder why Santa-on-fire-escape figures have never caught on in New York.  You could completely put a little figure with a knapsack on the rungs of a vertical ladder.  It would be cute, and nobody has chimneys in New York either.

The Reyes of course are forced to climb in their "oriental" finery, which I'd think would be pretty difficult on a rope ladder, but they manage.

The Three Kings have to have a rope ladder that supports the weight of three, not just one (plus presents).  But at least they're three skinny kings vs. one fat saint?

I suspect the Reyes Magos hold their own here against the Christmas Fat Man partly because they extend the holiday shopping season from November 1 after "El Halloween" for a solid twelve days.  Plus, they're expert gift-givers, as the ad below good-naturedly points out.  (For those non-Spanish speakers, the point is that you get two free pairs of glasses for every one you buy, so three packages at a time have to get delivered.  Santa's disgusted last words are "si os vieron los Reyes Magos..." "if the Three Kings saw you all..." suggesting that there is some competition of icons.)

I will analyze Three Kings ads (and their relative absence) in my next entry, which will deal with the weird racial stuff around Christmas here.  But for now, happy New Year, and happy twelve days of Christmas to those who celebrate it.

May 2018 be a marked improvement over 2017 for all of you.  And to all a good night.