The Lights Are Up

[garhkal]

We never had king cake as a tradition so I never encountered it until a few years ago with my in-laws. I think of it as “choking-hazard cake”

That makes me a complete heathen by comparison. I've never heard of it until this thread.

Never heard of a king-cake tradition.. Pecan cakes/pies, and all sorts of other cakes, sure..

[TRP]

We never had king cake as a tradition so I never encountered it until a few years ago with my in-laws. I think of it as “choking-hazard cake”

That makes me a complete heathen by comparison. I've never heard of it until this thread.

Never heard of a king-cake tradition.. Pecan cakes/pies, and all sorts of other cakes, sure..

It's mostly a Roman Catholic thing more closely related to Mardi Gras (that climaxes with a day most of you call "Tuesday") than Christmas. I only mentioned it, because it coincides with the last day of Christmas.

[T. Foster]

My in-laws all gather & share a big king cake on Jan 6th. Whoever gets the baby in their piece has to treat the rest of the family to a meal. Definitely a Catholic thing, maybe also a Mexican thing?

[TRP]

My in-laws all gather & share a big king cake on Jan 6th. Whoever gets the baby in their piece has to treat the rest of the family to a meal. Definitely a Catholic thing, maybe also a Mexican thing?

It's got deep roots in France and Italy. So, it's not a great stretch to believe Spain may also have a history with it, and so possibly onto South and Central America. Maybe they do King Cake in Rio? It wouldn't be noticeable to me, because everyone here does it. It would just appear as the local tradition.

[bobjester]

Mom & Dad converted to Catholicism, as did a couple of my close friends, and they've never said anything about a King Cake before. I haven't converted but I always go to the holiday services when my friends come to town for the holidays.

I get it, now that you've explained it, and I've heard of other variants with the penny in the cake, sometimes its a ring, or whatever the family in question has traditionally baked in. I stopped going over to the one friend's family who had a 'lucky' family horseshoe though...

[Chainsaw]

My son and I built this silly gingerbread house. Fun!

[Cloak n' Dagger]

My son and I built this silly gingerbread house. Fun!

Nice, now do another one based on your mega dungeon, you can call it Gingergrave.

[rredmond]

How much of the decorations were eaten during building.

[rredmond]

Nice, now do another one based on your mega dungeon, you can call it Gingergrave.

You'd probably have to Kickstarter that though...

[TRP]

Nice, now do another one based on your mega dungeon, you can call it Gingergrave.

You'd probably have to Kickstarter that though...

Then post a few years of "I'm on it!" and "Coming soon!" updates, sporadically providing pdf files of single wall images, and mailing a gum drop to a few randomly selected backers.

[rredmond]

Lucky stiffs those gum drop getters...

The marshmallow snowman would definitely be a stretch goal.

[bobjester]

I'd like to see a Ghostbusters Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man/Zool rooftop gingerbread diorama!

[garhkal]

Nice lookiin gingerbread house...

For those who DO large light set ups, how many hundreds (or thousands) of lights do you have??

[Philotomy Jurament]

I don't do the huge display thing. I just use the old-style outdoor bulbs strung along the roofline. No idea how many bulbs: several hundred, but not thousands. That's good enough for me.

Actually, I guess my current outdoor lights are LEDs instead of incandescent, but they're the same size and shape as the old ones from when I was growing up. Kinda like these:

[Philotomy Jurament]

Mom & Dad converted to Catholicism, as did a couple of my close friends, and they've never said anything about a King Cake before.

That doesn't seem surprising: it's a cultural tradition in some Catholic cultures, so it's not universal or officially associated with Catholic dogma/doctrine/teaching. You'd be more likely to encounter it socially (assuming you're in an area that has adopted the tradition) than during catechesis, for example.