Feast Day of the Three Kings

The final day of Christmas! The Three Kings arrive at the manger and greet the Baby Jesus. I've heard customs where, if you received any Christmas cards with a picture of the Three Kings, you save it to hang over your inside front door to bless the home for the coming year. I had a friend who used to send out only Three King Christmas cards in order to assure everyone of this opportunity.

My favorite blessing for the coming year is to inscribe with chalk the new year and the initials of the Three Kings over the outside doorway. This would appear like:

20 + C + M + B + 13
C is for Caspar, M is for Melchior, and B is for Balthasar. I've also heard that it could stand for, Christus Mansionem Benedicat - "May Christ bless this house".

I just changed the year on our inscription to '13' a few mintues ago. Not only it is it nice to remember the Three Kings in this way but it has opened conversation with door-to-door missionaries of various religions. Everyone forgets to argue faith as they want to know what the marks stand for on the door. We end up having a nice conversation, find a few things we have in common, and each go about the rest of our day with kind thoughts about the exchange.