There are three men who send Spanish children into a frenzy like no others. And no...I'm not talking about Raul, Beckham and Zidane. I'm talking about Gaspar, Melchor and Baltasar-The Three Wise Men (a.k.a., Los Reyes Magos).

The Three Wise Men are sort of a surrogate Santa Claus for Spanish children. And their holiday-which falls on January 6-is the most hotly-anticipated of the year.

The fun begins promply after post-New Year's Day hangovers have been quelled. This is when Spain goes into its annual, week-long Three Wise Men-fever pitch.

Children write lengthy letters to the Wise Men spouting outright lies about their past-year's behavior and listing-in comprehensive fashion-the toys that they want to receive. Then they take their letters to the local city hall or shopping center-where one of the Wise Men is usually holding court-and hand-deliver them.

On the morning of January 6, children leap from their beds at a painfully-early hour and drag their parents downstairs to see which toys the Three Wise Men left next to their shoes.

The family then sits down to a breakfast of tar-thick hot chocolate and a hunk of roscón-i.e., a fluffy, ring-shaped pastry topped with those candied fruits that only the British seem to like.

Baked into each roscón is a prize; typically a little ceramic figurine or a dried fava bean. The person whose piece of roscón contains the prize will have good luck-provided, of course, that he didn't break a molar on it.

Now...I'm not a kid anymore, but I, too, love Three Wise Men's Day. I love the roscón. I love the hot chocolate. I even love the toys.

But do you know what I love most about Three Wise Men festivites? The parade (known in Spanish as,  "la cabalgata").

Not all cabalgatas are created equal, however. I attended one a few years ago that took place in my little town of Sanchoville, and it wasn't quite up to Macy's standards.

We gathered in the town square with another two hunded freezing spectators. Thirty or forty minutes after the scheduled start time, a tractor pulling a barely-decorated wagon appeared...three blocks away. The crowd sprinted en masse down the street to catch a fleeting glimpse of the Three Wise Men standing on the back of the wagon.

Meanwhile, their assistants hurled handful after handful of hard candies at our eye-sockets. The tractor then puttered off into the distance; leaving my fellow townsfolk and I wondering where, exactly, our local tax revenues are being spent.

Now, I don't consider myself a biblical scholar. But still...I'm fairly certain that nobody drove John Deere tractors in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth. Where would they have bought spark plugs?

The experience convinced me to make the grueling five kilometer drive to Guadalajara for all future cabalgatas. Guadalajara, being a city of 60,000 people, seemed unlikely to have any tractors on display-although I was a little concerned that Melchor might pass in the back seat of an Alfa Romeo convertible.

My fears proved unfounded. Each cabalgata that I've attended in Guadalajara has been a magnificent spectacle. Gaspar rode the parade route on a real, live camel. Melchor was Alfa Romeo-free. And Baltasar-who, I am pleased to report, was not portrayed by a man channeling the ghost of Al Jolson-rode a baby elephant.  

Separating each Wise Man's entourage were elaborately-decorated floats pulled by live oxen, formations of Roman soldiers on horseback, columns of torch-wielding Egyptian babes, and numerous marching bands.

Given the pomp and circumstance that surround the Three Wise Men, it's not hard to understand why Santa Claus suffers an identity crisis in these parts. How can a few reindeer compete with torch-wielding Egyptian babes?

Sal DeTraglia / Expatica