DIA DE REYES
..., the best time to write this letter is at the beginning of December because that allow the 3 Magic Kings to go shopping, however there are some kids who write their letter at the last minute and sometimes it is impossible to get the toys because the stores have run out of those. There are different ways to send the letter to the Magic King's house, the choices are; put the letter in the mail, put the letter in a shoe under the bed, put the letter under the pillow or hang the letter from a balloon and then let it go. The parents, as you might suspect, are the 3 Magic Kings, they get the letter, read it and buy the toys, but in their hearts they are hoping the children will believe the history of the 3 Magic Kings for a long time before they realize who they really are. Is not easy to keep this dream on children because there is always someone who will tell them the truth, someone who will spoil their innocence. After reading the letter, the parents are ready to start looking and buying but, unfortunately, not all children will get what they want. The reason? MONEY $ and here is where my family gets into the narration. In the 80's I was 7 year old, my sisters; Veronica 9, Rachel 8 and Sandy 2 years old, as you can see no boys in the family, even though we were a small family we still had a problem, and the problem was called MONEY. Since my parents didn't get a secondary diploma, their opportunities to get a better job were almost null. My father was selling books door by door and while my mother was doing laundry for someone else. My sisters and I were cleaning the house, fighting and cooking. Since our economic situation was not good we couldn't expect to receive toys on Dia de Reyes. Also to have a Rotisserie chicken in our table was a "privilege" that we could only expect once in a while, and when I said in a while that meant once every 3 or 4 months. Even though my parent's love was huge, they couldn't afford to give us the toys we wanted, that is why it was always a mystery how our shoes always had at least a candy bag. In 1980, January to be exactly, my mother gave us a surprise, we could ask for something we really wanted, I remember she said: "since you have been an excellent daughters, your dad and I have saved some money to buy whatever you want", of course she wasn't talking about expensive presents, we knew that, but our reaction was amazing, we started jumping, kissing them and screaming, we knew the sacrifice they had done for us and we needed to think very careful about what we were going to ask for. We spent all night awake, thinking. My 3 sisters and I shared the same bedroom, 2 in each twin bed, so, you can imagine, if someone didn't sleep the other 3 couldn't either. By 8:00 AM next morning we were waiting for mom, with our letters in our hands. My sisters didn't know what I had asked for, that was going to be a little secret from each one of us...