Three Kings Day
“I wanted them all to look a little bit different,” she said. Then she laughed. “But when I look at them, they all look like my brother.”
Brown, 29, is an entrepreneur, a “certified therapeutic art life coach.” Her company The Art Child (facebook.com/TheArtChild) offers classes, online and in person, for children and adults.
Brown said she is going to spend Three Kings Day introducing her boyfriend, who is not Puerto Rican, to the annual tradition. “He said, ‘you’re supposed to get gifts on this day?’ ” she said.
Traditionally, Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos is celebrated in Hartford with a procession of the Three Kings riding camels on Park Street. The parade, which attracts thousands of spectators every year, was canceled last year and is canceled again this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year, a traditional toy giveaway was canceled, too. This year, the toy giveaway — with kings but not camels — will be held for children ages 1 to 10 on Jan. 6 at 45
Wadsworth St. Registration is closed for the event.
“They can get their toy and take a picture with the three kings. We want to keep the tradition of giving toys to children. But that is all there is this year because of the situation right now,” said Nilda Morales of the Institute for the Hispanic Family at Catholic Charities in Hartford, which presents the toy giveaway in conjunction with the Spanish American Merchants Association (SAMA).
Julio Mendoza of SAMA said celebrating the day is important because it instills the tradition in children.
“It celebrates our history, and allows the kids to always remember the three kings. We want them to grow up believing in the three kings and when they have families, to continue this tradition,” Mendoza said. “It’s tremendous to see the faces of the kids, how they look at the kings and believe in them.”
He added that Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos celebrations show Hartford that Puerto Ricans “are part of the city.
“Our culture is very important to us, and very dear. Wewant everyone to celebrate the three kings together,” he said.
Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@ courant.com. to issue a statewide rule.
“I don’t want to put a lot of counter-pressures on and rebellion and people fighting back against it,’’ Lamont said Monday. “I prefer that everybody wear the mask when you’re indoors. We’re getting N95 masks available to anybody, no questions asked. I think we’re on the right track right now.”
West Hartford Mayor Shari Cantor also called for a statewide mask mandate Wednesday, as the town reinstated its own local mandate.
“COVID-19 does not stop at municipal borders, and our hospitals and health care delivery systems are all regional assets that serve multiple communities. There should be one common statewide and regional standard,” said Cantor in a release.
Bloomfield also issued a townwide mask mandate, effective Thursday, that requires any person, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask whenwithin six feet of other people in any indoor public place. Bloomfield joins Hartford and New Haven.
In calling on the state to mandate masks while holding off on local mandates, South Windsor Town Manager Michael Maniscalco said he and other town leaders want the weight of the state behind enforcement.
By not making statewide masking the rule, the governor “has created a scenario that is unenforceable,” Maniscalco said.
Just last week, he said, police had to escort a person from town hall because he refused to wear a mask. The man was pressing his right to go mask-less and has now been marked as a trespasser and will not be allowed to re-enter the building, Maniscalco said.
The incident, he said, illustrates the difficulty in enforcing townwide mask rules. People have called police to report someone not wearing a mask “in aisle 10 in Target,” Maniscalco said, but waited until they returned home to make the complaint.
“What are police supposed to do?” he said. “It’s very, very challenging.”
Maniscalco stressed, however, that the town supports businesses that establish their ownmandates on masking and social distancing.