Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Kings Cake!

One of my most favorite things about living in different places around the world is taking on different cultural traditions, like the King's Cake! Early January marks the time when where the wise men went to visit Jesus and took their gifts to him. So, we have the "Kings Cake" (Galette des Rois)!!
At EVERY bakery and store in France, they have rows of these specific cakes and on them have little paper crowns. A friend brought us one and it had 2 crowns, and so this means there are 2 surprises inside!
So, my teacher taught us... how the French "do" the Kings Cake. The youngest child in the room gets under the table that the cake is being served on. (Under the table so not to see which piece is being cut). The mother (or whoever) cuts the first piece and asks who each piece goes to. (First piece goes to dad, second to sister.... etc. or whoever the child chooses.) In each cake there is 1 (or more) little pieces (token like figures). Whoever has the token in his piece gets to wear the hat and is "KING!" Our kids loved it... (granted, they just wore the hats), but as they grow, we'll have to do the normal tradition!

This is (part) of our cake... but it was basically this in a circle!
This is one of the little tokens in our cake! (Plastic wise man)

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