Days Until Epiphany (Three Kings' Day)

About Epiphany (Three Kings' Day)

January 6 marks the Christian feast commemorating the visit of the Magi (wise men) to the infant Jesus, traditionally understood as the revelation of Christ to the Gentile world — hence the feast's name, from the Greek word for "manifestation."

It's also known as Three Kings' Day and is a public holiday and major gift-giving occasion in several countries, notably Spain and much of Latin America, where it can be a bigger gift-giving tradition than Christmas Day itself.

In much of Latin America and Spain, children traditionally receive gifts from the Three Kings on this date rather than from Santa Claus on Christmas — a genuinely distinct regional gift-giving custom rather than a duplicate of Christmas Day.

In several Eastern Orthodox churches following the older Julian calendar, the equivalent Theophany feast falls on a different date entirely, another example of the Julian-Gregorian calendar gap affecting Christian observances beyond Christmas itself.