Final

Rene Lopez Zequeira
English 121

Food Essay
Final

January 6

At the end of every year people have different emotions towards the holydays. During Christmas people are always in a hurry to have shopping and food done. My parents usually had everything ready for Christmas, the presents neatly wrapped under the tree with the food ready on the table. We usually celebrate every holyday but the only holydays really important to us would be Thanksgiving, Christmas and January 6. Those holydays are important because we like to cook and eat foods from different varieties and those days we cook a lot. Christmas has become one of our favorite holydays but not the only one, the reason would be because that day we spend it with all of our family members; it is a family reunion. Every year a different family member volunteers so we can go to that person’s house and celebrate Christmas. Every one brings different types of Mexican foods. What we usually see there is mole, pozole, tamales and different kinds of desserts and drinks but that is not the only food. That day to us is hardly about the gifts under the tree and more about eating and socializing. The younger children are the ones more preoccupied with the gifts rather than food.

My parents were born in Mexico and they did not celebrate Christmas like we do now, they celebrated it very differently when they were children. Both of my parent’s families were poor when they were kids. My father had fourteen brothers and sisters which my grandmother had to take care of herself because my grandfather died. He was an alcoholic and died because he drank too much. My father did not really like to talk about his family a lot. My mother had four brothers and four sisters which would later become a total of seven brothers and six sisters. My grandfather remarried, that is where the other five children come from. The reason why he remarried was not because he got divorced but because my grandmother had died giving birth to a baby girl that also died. When my grandmother passed away my mom was six-teen, she was the fifth child. My grandfather had lots of mouths to feed so all the first five of his children that where over six-teen (which would include my mom) dropped out of school if not graduated already and went to work at a factory.

To them Christmas was not as jolly as they would want it to be. They knew they were going to hardly get any presents from their father because he could not afford it. So they told my grandfather to not waste money on gifts and buy food they needed instead. Christmas day was like an ordinary day to them now and besides they preferred to wait to celebrate on January 6. The older children knew how to cook so they helped their stepmom make food every year on the holydays. The day they knew they were going to get presents that was not in their birthday was on January 6. That day is significant to them because that is when the three wise men gave baby Jesus gifts.

The tradition is that your godparents give you presents on that day like if it was Christmas. My mom liked that day because they got a present that was not bought with their fathers money. They had a big feast and the significant food on that day was and is bread. It is not just any kind of bread it is called Rosca de Reyes; they only bake it and sell it on that day. It is hard to describe how the bread looks like but it is a large oval with no center like a donut. The bread has liquorish and other sweet things on the top; also it has a two inch plastic baby doll inside it. The point of the bread is because everyone has to take a slice of bread and whoever gets the doll has to throw a party whenever they want. Having to get a slice of bread and hoping you do not get the doll was fun. I lived in Mexico for five years and I remember celebrating that day and enjoying it.

Even though we celebrate Christmas more now we still get that bread each year on January 6 by mail. The food we eat brings different memories to each of my brothers and me. Some bring joy and others sadness but for me eating that slice of bread reminds me of those few years I lived in Mexico. The only and last year’s we would spend as a happy and whole family before our father would leave our mom to be alone. Even though he barely calls my brothers and I because he is too busy working, he sends us the bread year. Some years I do not feel like eating it because of the memories it brings at first but then I remember other happy moments and how fun that day was that I do eat it. Also I know he is going to call at night and I have to have an answer to, “Les gusto el pan mis hijos.” Which translates to, “Did you enjoy the bread my sons.”