In which I have an epiphany about Epiphany

Epiphany gets a bit of a bum deal as far as its place in the calendar is concerned.

After the huge effort which we put into Advent and Christmas, Epiphany, on the 6th January, feels like a bit of a last gasp, a clinging to the wreckage, an afterthought. We've already 'done' the Kings as we told the Nativity story. It doesn't help that we've already had New Year by then with the impulse that brings to start things afresh. We want to tell a new story, get on with the next thing, and finally get to hoover the corner behind where the Christmas tree stood.

In the UK, most people will wait until the 5th or 6th of January, or the Twelfth Night of Christmas, to take down the tree and the decorations but, although we may read the story of the Kings at church, I don't know anyone who celebrates Epiphany at home.

La gallette des rois (or "King cake")

In many Catholic cultures, Epiphany, or the Feast of the Kings, is given more attention. In France, for instance, a cake is made with a small trinket (or 'santon') inside, sometimes in the shape of the baby Jesus. Whoever finds the santon becomes King or Queen for the day and I have seen piles of gallettes des rois, as they are known, stacked in French bakeries, each with its golden cardboard crown. The day's monarch gets to decide what games will be played, can request their favourite foods and generally rules the roost until the day's end.

I'd thought about baking a gallette just for fun this year but we decided against it on several counts. Firstly, we'd had enough cake to last us a lifetime over Christmas and New Year. We'd also had a spate of right royal misbehaviour from a certain daughter and didn't really want to encourage any more regal shenanigans. I also couldn't quite see how the gallette tradition would help us teach anything useful. I'm all for traditions which are fun but I reckoned we could do better!

Unfortunately, by the morning of the 6th, which was a Sunday this year, I had come up with no good alternative ideas, mainly because, as a hard-working Mum, I was all done in by the end of Christmas. I needed an idea which would take minimal preparation, which could be achieved with materials we already had in the house and which didn't require any artistic talent, because I have virtually none! Here's what we came up with. We all enjoyed it and I even found the fresh start I was craving at the beginning of the year.

I've suggested variations for older children but ours are 1 and 3 as a guide.

First, I cut out about a dozen stars from tin foil. Cheap, easy, quick. I hid them around the garden, some in easy places for our toddler, and some in slightly harder places for our pre-schooler.

Pigwig on our star hunt (NB The bucket has no specific theological significance!)

The kids then hunted for the stars and put them in a bucket, just like an Easter egg hunt. We wrapped up warm, kept it short and came back in fast for hot chocolate and snacks. Snacks are crucial to the success of your domestic school of faith, I find!

If you had older children, you could make it a scavenger hunt, maybe sticking a short list of things to find in the lid of a cardboard egg box. It would be relatively easy to make different lists for different age children to make it harder or easier. If the weather is foul, the hunt could even be inside. From pre-teen age upwards, I've heard of families going geo-caching as an Epiphany activity. I can't wait to have older kids!

After our hunt, we talked about how the Wise Men had looked for Jesus because they wanted to know more about him and understand who he was (we don't historically know if they were kings - they were more likely wealthy Zooastrian astrologers in fine robes, which may have led to the confusion). We explained that we are really lucky to be able to find out about Jesus in a much easier way - by reading the Bible. We then read the story of the wise men in the Beginners Bible.

After the story, we started to think about the gifts the wise men gave Jesus. We wanted the children (well, our 3 year old), to realise that we can still give Jesus gifts today.

To show some of the gifts we can give Jesus, we first cut out some paper hearts. Each of us wrote our names on a heart (with more or less help) and put it in a decorated gift box to show that our first gift to Jesus is our love.

We then drew around each of our hands and thought about gifts of service which could be gifts to Jesus and put these in the box too. This was a good exercise for us as adults too and a helpful reminder of a really basic but easily forgotten truth.

The whole thing took about half an hour and then our kids were off to play, attention-span fully used up. However, later on, Pigwig was holding BearCub's hands and helping him dance to some fun music which was provoking the most joyful smile on his face at the attention from his beloved big sister. "Look!" we said. "You're giving a present to Jesus!" She was enthralled and, for the last month, whenever we have congratulated her for doing something kind, she has beamed and said "I was giving a present to Jesus".  The penny had clearly dropped.

So don't give up on Epiphany, just because you've thrown your all into Christmas. You've given your presents to everyone else, now, surely,  it's Jesus's turn. If Christmas felt, as it so often can, like a bit of a spiritual let down, because the stresses of the festivities crowded out the spiritual meaning at times, then this is a quiet, simple way to refocus and to give that gift. In the words of the lovely carol: "...what I can, I give him, Give my heart."