Heilige Drei Könige

Last Friday, January 5th, I was surprised to wake up and find out it was a holiday...actually, Saturday, January 6th was the holiday, but everyone seemed to be celebrating it a day early....here's what happened...

Karl went off to work as usual around 8 am...I watched a little Knight Rider on TV then got into the shower around 9 am. Shortly after emerging wet from the shower, I thought I heard someone outside our door. Since I was in no way decent to take a peek and since I didn't hear a knock or a ring, I ignored it. Not long after, as I was finishing up my daily primping, I heard some people talking in our building's stairwell. I took a peek out the door and heard our landlord talking to someone...and then the someone started to quote a Bible scripture...and I imagined that it must be Jehovah Witnesses and I was very glad I had been conviently in the shower when they stopped at my door. As I walked back into my apartment I noticed some strange writing in white chalk at the top of my door...what the freak?



As I heard them leave, I took a peek off of our balcony to confirm my suspicions and was very surprised to see instead a group of kids dressed up like kings! What the freak?!



And then I remembered Karl mentioning to me once that there was some German holiday coming up but that since the holiday fell on a Saturday, he sadly would not be gettting any days off of work. Could this have anything to do with a holiday? So I took a gander through the internet, putting all the clues together, until I discovered Drei Heilige Könige Tag = Three Holy Kings Day!

This holiday may be better known in the English-speaking world as Epiphany. It's a Catholic holiday celebrating the day the kings visited the Christ child, bearing their gifts. It has an interesting history which you can read about in this Wikipedia link. Here in Germany, apparently, children dress up as the Magi and then go from door to door to ask for money to donate to needy children. They carry with them chalk that was blessed by a priest. Over the doors of the homes they visit they write 20 + C + B + M + 07. I'm not sure what the 20 means and I'm pretty sure the 07 is the year, but I do know that the letters stand both for the traditional names of the kings (Caspar, Balthasar and Melchoir) and for the latin phrase "Christus mansionem benedicat" which means "may Christ bless this house".

Now you may be thinking...come on, Heather, you lived in German for a year and a half already, didn't you already experience this holiday? Well, please remember that I lived in EAST Germany...as in former Communist country...as in religion and the celebrating of religious holidays was frowned upon (although they managed to still keep Christmas absolutely lovely!). Right now Karl and I are living in a heavily Catholic area where these Cathlolic holidays are widely celebrated. And when I was in eastern Germany 10 years ago holidays like this still really weren't being celebrated. And besides...the east Germans certainly have a few holidays of their own that the rest of Germany wouldn't consider putting on their calendars (just ask me about Herrn Tag...man, was that a horrid day!).