The Three Wisemen´s Parade

This was my first time at a parade that features the Three Wisemen. Being able to name them is not important, for the children know them as the wiseman with the white hair, the wiseman with the blonde hair, and the wiseman with the black hair.

Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar

 We ran down the Rambla and to our place on the street that leads down to the sea. The parade began with fireworks going off down by the shoreline and shooting over the tops of apartment buildings. The sky was a blaze of colour. At the top of the other end of the street where I was standing, the parade began. There was the siren of a police car, then an SUV passed, the top of which had huge presents tied on top. Fourteen attendants to the first wiseman came marching along. This wiseman had white hair and was riding on a float, attendants on his platform and people walking alongside, holding standards, wearing tunic pants and sporting turbans on their heads. Sequined material was draped from ear to ear masking their faces. They dropped candy into any hand that was cupped and pressed into the street.

At first I was worried about whiplash. My head was going from the left where I could see the fireworks, to the far right where I could see the three wisemen. Finally I gave up on the fireworks and ran up the street to where I could see the parade one block away. I ran passed a second wiseman with another 14 attendants, the back of his float covered with coloured ostrich feathers and his float was followed by a marching band and more presents, this time inside an SUV. Then the third wiseman floated by with more attendants and more candy being passed out.

¨Who is that uncostumed man in the parade who is going along bowing and nodding to the people?¨ said Bonnie to Roza. ¨Oh, that man has just joined in,¨ Roza replied. ¨Oh, like my mother,¨ said Bonnie. ¨Look! See her in the middle of the parade?¨

I wasn´t in the middle of the parade, but I was running up behind the crowd to get a closer look at the parade as it came down the street.  I only tripped three times on the cement abutements as I was running up the sidewalk, but didn´t go down on any of the stumbles.

Of course I was thrilled.

Our family had rehearsed the plan for the evening´s travels. Catch the parade at its beginning. Run down a few streets and catch it down by the parade by the sea. Dash over to their aunt´s hair dressing shop and catch the wisemen again as the parade finished up its last leg.

How much fun was that to see the six little cousins running hand in hand along the rambla to begin with and then down the side streets to the next parade viewing. We split up to make a run for the last leg, everyone getting there by their own fastest route.

Early Persian painting of the three wisemen

Some families waved paper lanterns as the parade went by. I watched one mother light a candle and place it inside of the lantern, locking the top of the mechanism before she put it on the pole that it was to swing on. Bonnie grabbed me and made me go to the other side of the street as I was watching that process, so that light went out for me.


The more seasoned parade-going children brought plastic bags their parents had brought groceries home in. There seems to be no shame about collecting as much candy as possible. They were holding out the bags and the attendants were casting handfuls of candy in each bag. Those children, also, knew to run from one spot to another. I did a double take seeing a child who might have had collected a kilogram of candy in her pursuit of happiness for the evening.
Why not?

This is the night the three wisemen come.

We left the parade to go to the Catalonian grandmother´s house to make large cards with the names of children placed on each card and then on a dish. The wisemen come to each of your relatives houses. If two families live in one house, the wisemen leave something for you at each family´s spot. So tomorrow David will be going to three different sets of relatives to see what the wisemen left for him there, as well as receiving something at this house upstairs and downstairs (since there are two families here right now). He has already gone to bed in anticipation of the event, as I shall do now as well.

Right now, there is water in bowls for the camels and food on each dish for the wisemen, both of which will be gone when we wake up in the morning.

Arta