Epiphany 2010

We celebrated Epiphany on the traditional day, January 6. Here's how we began our day with three little gifts, waiting on the table:

~The Gifts~

The Gold Gift (something handmade): I Spy pouches

The Frankincense Gift (something religious): a new Glory Stories CD

The Myrrh Gift (something for the body) : a bottle of body wash

Caroline's I Spy pouch was filled with little plastic clear jewel-looking things that I found at the craft store (over two years ago, when I first planned to make one of these, ha ha!). Cecilia's was filled with dry rice. In each one, there are several trinkets to find: beads, pennies, shells, small animal-shaped buttons, paper clips, and various other small items found around the house and in the craft closet. I plan to make a checklist for each pouch so the girls can check off each item as they find it. Each pouch also has some tiny letter beads inside - letters to spell each girl's name. I plan to make sure we take these on long car trips!

Cecilia and Caroline hold up their three gifts

~Breakfast~

Gifts of the Magi Bread, which is filled with special treasures, just as the three kings brought treasures to the child Jesus

It has coconut, raisins, dried cranberries (rather than the cherries listed in the recipe), mandarin oranges, bananas...

...and chocolate chips!

This goes fast - and it is great with decaf Oregon Chai, by the way!

~King Cake~

The girls helped me bake a king cake - one we've never made before, which was a recipe for a Louisiana King Cake. It is more like a bread... with seven egg yolks in it, yum!!!

The recipe said to shape it into a 14 inch long piece of dough and then form it into a ring... now, there is no way a 14 inch long rope of dough this thick can become a ring, so I made it longer, and yet it still ended up with no hole in the center. But it cooked through just fine.

Here's the glaze, with my attempt at homemade colored sugar sprinkled on top... of note: natural food dyes don't shake nicely into sugar and require lots of stirring and smashing, ha ha!

And here's a traditional Epiphany drink, a hot apple cider with baked apples in it called Lamb's Wool.

We had our friends over to share our King Cake, and Sam found the baby doll in his slice of cake!

Beth read a couple books about the three kings to some of the kids. Cecilia is wearing her favorite dress-up outfit and holding her favorite Advent/Christmas book, Hanna's Christmas (I think I have read that book 187 times in the past month! ;).

Here's most of the group holding up our "Star of Bethlehem."

Our glitter stars from last year decorated our dining room today.

Our kings also made it to the manger scene today... they had been slowly traveling along the living room furniture toward their destination!

I hope everyone had a great Epiphany!