SOUL FOOD:

For Pauline Chavez, as for many Christians, the Christmas season is far from over. For her and others, the 12 days of Christmas don’t end until Jan. 6.

From the start, Chavez has been looking forward to El Día de los Reyes Magos — Three Kings Day — with great anticipation.

I met Chavez, who lives in Huntington Beach, after she read a Soul Food column headlined, “Importance of the 12 days of Christmas” two years ago. She e-mailed me and attached a copy of a story, “El Día de los Reyes Magos,” which she had written for the Santa Fe New Mexico magazine La Herencia three years before.

The magazine publishes oral history, Spanish language and Southwestern literature, recipes, myths, and other Spanish and Mexican folklore along with documentary photographs and illustrations, as well as articles on current issues and trends. It’s about Hispanic culture, written by Hispanics who, like Chavez, are from the Southwest.

One of her ancestors, Don Pedro Gomez Duran y Chavez, born in Llerena, Spain, in 1567, was among the founders of Santa Fe. He arrived in New Mexico on the eve of Christmas in 1600.

Chavez’s story is a memoir of her family’s celebrations of El Día de los Reyes Magos in Atarque, the New Mexico village where she grew up as Pablita Chavez. Reading the column on the 12 days of Christmas, she wrote, “brought back those memories very vividly.”

For her and her siblings, she recollects, “El Día de los Reyes Magos was more exciting than Christmas.” Which may strike some as a heresy if they don’t understand the festival.

Other names for Three Kings Day, which falls on Jan. 6, are Epiphany and the Theophany.

While the Eastern Church emphasizes the revelation of the Holy Trinity at the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Theophany, the Church in the West emphasizes the three Gentile Magi’s adoration of Jesus at Epiphany.

Both events revealed Jesus to be the Son of God and savior of the world. By any of its names, the day embodies the meaning of Christmas.

Chavez’s father liked to enhance his children’s natural anticipation on the day when, it was said, if one was very good, “los reyes magos” might visit during their journey to see the Christ child.

The celebrations began on the evening of Jan. 5. Chavez and her siblings would have early baths and dress in new flannel pajamas.

With an ear toward the back door of the house her father would say, “I think I hear a noise, I wonder what that could be; it doesn’t sound like horses,” Chavez wrote in her memoir. Did they hear anything, he’d ask.

In “el cuarto de recivo” — the foyer of the house — they would kneel to say their evening prayers before an altar dedicated to San José, St. Joseph, the patron saint of the family.

In the room there was an old trunk that had traveled to Santa Fe with Chavez’s Uncle Blas when he went away to school at St. Michael’s. Chavez’s mother would lay her white wedding tablecloth over the top of the trunk.

On small slips of paper, she would write each of her children’s names. Then she would place them in a neat row on top of the trunk.

She and her husband would bless their children, reminding them of how on that night the Magi — Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar — would follow the star to “el Niño Jesus” to offer him their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Her father, wrote Chavez, would “let out a whoop and a holler, and run out the kitchen door and yell, ‘Ay van! Ay van!!’ There they go! There they go!!”

Coming back into the house, he’d tell the children he was almost certain he’d seen three camels near “los dos Cerritos” — two small hills — behind the corral. “What excitement!” Chavez recalled.

In the kitchen, they enjoyed hot chocolate and biscochitos — cookies flavored with anise seeds and topped with cinnamon sugar.

Sometimes they would also crack a few piñon nuts to eat before being tucked into bed.

On waking, the children would hurry to Uncle Blas’ trunk. There they would find fresh oranges, candy and nuts.

Just then, their father would rush in from the corral, according to Chavez’s story, “his blue eyes shining with excitement.” He’d seen “las huellas de los cameos” — tracks of camel hooves.

The children would run with him to the corral to see the hoof prints, too. No cow, sheep or horse tracks, these. Oh, no.

In keeping these traditions, Chavez wrote, her family has been blessed again and again with the best gifts of the Magi — gifts of “family, good friends, religious traditions, good health, love and respect.”

There’s no corral behind the south Huntington Beach home where Chavez now lives.

But on the eve of El Día de los Reyes Magos, she sets out snacks for the Magi in thankful anticipation of their visit.

The Magi leave small gifts in the entryway. They also leave a letter that recaps family events from the waning year.

“They know all about us,” Chavez says. She sends a copy of their letter to family members and to cherished friends.

You can read her original memoir, El Día de los Reyes Magos, at archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/FAMILIA/2006-12/1166544025.

If you’d also like a recipe for biscochitos, send me an e-mail request.

Locally, the Rosca de Reyes — a crown-shaped sweet bread embellished with jewel-toned candied fruit — is the centerpiece of El Día de los Reyes Magos celebrations. Inside the colorful cake are tiny baby figurines, representing the infant Jesus.

Traditionally, whoever is lucky enough to get a figurine in his piece of cake also gets to organize a La Candelaria party for the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple on Feb. 2.

If you’d like to try a Rosca de Reyes, one can be purchased at Jons Marketplace on Goldenwest Street sometime after this weekend when they begin to bake them.

For even more of a taste of El Día de los Reyes Magos, visit the festivities at the Fiesta Marketplace on Fourth Street in Santa Ana.

They will be begin at noon Sunday and include gifts for children, shepherd’s plays, a visit by the three Magi, music and dancing.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at michele@soulfoodfiles.com.