Epiphany, also known as Kings Day, is celebrated on January 6. This is a day when we, as Catholics, remember the three kings who traveled so far to honor Jesus. Epiphany has a lot of meaningful and fun traditions! I’m going to share five ways you can celebrate Epiphany in your home.
1. Bless Your Home — The best thing you can do for Epiphany is to have your home blessed. You can invite a priest to bless your home or you can do it yourself. If you’re blessing your own home, you’ll need holy water and blessed chalk, which you can get from your church. (Try to get holy water on Epiphany. It has a special blessing.)
To give an Epiphany blessing, take holy water and bless each room of your home. Then you’ll take your blessed chalk and write 20+C+M+B+2024 (or current year) above your front door. The letters stand for the names of the three wise men: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.
House of Joppa has an Epiphany House Blessing Kit that includes a holy water container, chalk, and prayer cards that’s really beautiful. You can find it here.
2. Read an Epiphany Book — This is a great time to read a book about the three kings, or the three wise men. One of my favorites is “The Wise Men Who Found Christmas” by Raymond Arroyo. It has such beautiful pictures and it’s very historically accurate.
3. Finish Your Nativity Set — A fun tradition many families follow is to add their three wise men to their nativity scene (here’s the one we have) on Epiphany, not before. Some will even set their kings out but leave them further from the manger, and move them a little closer each day. This could be a really fun one for your kids! Here are my Three Kings Set
4. Bake a Kings Cake — A Kings Cake is a popular Catholic tradition, especially if you are from New Orleans. After baking (I use a Bunt cake pan), you can finish with gold, purple, and green icing or colored sugar. (These colors represent royalty.) Another fun tradition is placing a small, plastic baby Jesus inside the cake. Simply make a small cut at the bottom after baking and insert the toy. Whoever gets the slice with baby Jesus gets to be king for the day! Your child can wear a crown, skip chores, or play king or queen however they would like. This is a fun one!
My Daughter Bella had the piece of cake with the baby Jesus, so Bella was the Princess for the day.
5. You Can Decorate! I always love decorating for the Catholic celebrations! Party Like A Saint has some great party decorations that the kids and I love click HERE to check it out.
And of course you can always go to Mass — Going to Mass or praying a rosary is always a perfect way to honor God.
I hope you found at least one idea here you love. If your family has any special Epiphany traditions, drop a comment below!
One Response
Yes yes yes to all of this! Wow, I don’t know why I didn’t think to leave the wise men/Maji out of the Nativity scene! We leave out Baby Jesus during Advent but the wise men are there. I realize that doesn’t make any sense. 🙂 I also really like the idea of blessing your house. When my family and I attended Mass on the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, we brought salt and other cooking essentials for our priest to bless our meals for the year. However I didn’t think to bless our house! We will do that this weekend! 🙂
I love your spirit and encouragement, Heather! I watch your Youtube videos and you help me as a Catholic wife and mom every day. Thank you for sharing your ministry with the world.