Today's the celebration of the arrival of the magi bearing gifts, also known as Kings Day, though word on the street is that they were Persian Priests, not kings.

In southern Louisiana, you buy a cake for Kings Day and hide a little plastic baby in it. (During the days before plastic, people hid a dried bean in the cake.) Whoever finds the bean or baby must host the Kings' Day celebration next year.

Who first had the idea of secreting a bean in a cake? Was it for Kings Day, or is it a tradition that goes way way back to other celebrations, now buried with our ancestors?

For a couple of years when the kids were small, we'd set up the resin Nativity set in early December, and leave the wise men out. They'd start their journey on the window sill in the kitchen, and each day progress a little farther toward their goal in the living room. They traversed sticky counters, dodged dust bunnies along the floor, and perched on top of the TV where they were likely mystified by the songs and skits of Sesame Street. "Gotta put down the ducky if you wanna play the saxaphone..."

But they plodded on until finally they joined up with the lambs, the shepherds, and the baby in the manger, the angel hanging from the apex of the roof on a bent nail that tended to tilt, leaving the angel in a precarious position, or sometimes upside down in the straw.

I tend to think of the real magi as older, but maybe they were in their 20s, or even late teens. Maybe one was a bit of a comedian. Maybe there was some fuming when one insisted they take a detour that ended up in a dead end whereupon they had to backtrack for a day. It would be amazing to hear one of their conversations during the trip. They all likely had many stories to share when they finally got back home to Persia.