Will you find the bean and be King for the day?

Christmas for the French tended to be a solemn occasion. The focus was on baby Jesus and going to Midnight Mass. Christmas Day was meant for devotion and the season of Advent was observed as a period of prayer and fasting. The word advent means coming and referred to the coming of Jesus on Christmas Day.

It was the New Year throughout France and New France that marked the beginning of a period of celebration from 1 January until Ash Wednesday.

The Feast of Kings, celebrated on January 6th (also called Three Kings’ Day or Epiphany) commemorates the day the wise men came to visit Jesus and celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ himself. The King’s Cake was used to commemorate the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem. The tradition is that a person who finds the bean in the cake becomes king or queen for the day and wears a paper crown.