Today is Epiphany, or Heilige Drei Koenige Tag. The day the three wisemen showed up to visit baby Jesus and bring Him gifts. To celebrate this day in Switzerland, our Canton doesn't do much. We are not a Catholic Canton, so no one has the day off, or anything. It's pretty much life as usual. However, there is one fun tradition they partake in, the Koenigskuchen. I meant to get pictures of ours this morning, but I was so sleepy, that I forgot until we were all sitting down for lunch. (I wasn't sleepy the whole time, just first thing in the morning.) Anyway, they make these delicious sweet rolls that are baked together in groups of seven, with almonds and coarse sugar sprinkled on top. Inside are raisins and in one of the rolls, there is a plastic king. I believe they used to use an actual coin, when Mom was baking it at home. But nowadays, with food safety regulations and fear of choking, they just use the plastic king. Whoever finds it in their roll is king, or queen, for the day.
In our house, the kids were all excited because I had told them the night before that whoever became king wouldn't have to do any of their chores today. That made them all jump out of bed and come to the breakfast table in a better mood than I have ever seen on a school morning. Even I took a roll, because as I said to Chris, "I don't want to have to do any chores today, either." Alas, it was Sophie who found the king. The cakes are sold with a golden cardboard crown for the "king" to wear. Sophie very proudly wore hers for the rest of breakfast, but decided that she didn't want to wear it to school. Instead, she put on a blue headband, that felt like a crown. :) Of course, this now meant that I was going to have to actually wash all those dirty dishes waiting for me in the kitchen. Shoot!
When the kids all came from school and playgroup, Sarah had some exciting news. Her teacher had also brought a Koenigskuchen for her class, and Sarah had found the king. So now we had two queens to celebrate. I told her that she didn't have to do her chores either. She was very happy to hear that, since she has vacuum the wood floor this week, and she hates that one. I called them "Your Majesty" and "Eure Koeniglichehoheit" all afternoon, until it started to bug them. Ha! The boys are hoping for a return to male power next year.
