Traditions- 2019 calendars, Rosca de Reyes and fresh roasted chestnuts

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog and sometimes food is a small part of the posts.  Today, it's about 2/3. Cathy is writing.

Happy New Year and thank you for the good wishes via Kirk's post.  It's a time of finishing up the holiday season, rearranging and writing '2019' on paperwork.   Part of my regular activity consists of acquiring new calendars from various businesses and sometimes posting about them with photos.  This year is the same. 
Fullsizeoutput_4b9It started out slow; there were four Saturdays before Christmas in December 2018.  A lot of businesses waited to do their giveaways with a purchase. IMG_3186
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Then giveaways began en masse and my friend, cc, helped by also collecting some of the calendars from various South Bay businesses.  I had told her that it was sad that our, 'regular' calendar from Orchard Supply Hardware (which closed in October) would be missing after giving away a train-centric calendar every year since 1931.  She even purchased one calendar for us (the outhouse one on the bottom right corner of this last photo (it will hold a prominent place in The Mister's office). We actually needed to find space for two more calendars because now there are so many.  

Within some of the above linked posts there has also been mention of Rosca de Reyes, a traditional Mexican bread shared on the 12th night after Christmas (Epiphany, January 6, Feast of Three Kings), usually while taking down Christmas decor. (In France, the traditional bread is Galette de Rois).  cc and I did a small 'food crawl' the other day and stopped at three South Bay bakeries. IMG_3144
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IMG_3144 All of the bakeries had beautiful window art advertising the upcoming holiday. IMG_3154
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IMG_3154They also had beautiful displays of the roscas for pre-ordering…
IMG_3154 IMG_3157 as well as plenty of samples.

However, I had already pre-ordered (as well as picked up and mailed one Rosca on Thursday) from Su Pan. IMG_3216I was there at 6 a.m. today.
IMG_2366 IMG_3209and Roscas as well as other fresh baked sweets were everywhere, fresh and ready to be picked up. IMG_3220 
IMG_3220A Grande for our neighbor and a Chica for us.  Fresh..so very fresh; the car smelled great. IMG_3228 Three slices with breakfast was perfect!

Another annual tradition is to take advantage of the freshly roasted chestnuts from in front of Lucky Seafood Market (which ran out of calendars before we got one). The little tent covering the chestnut roaster has disappeared, but the roaster, attached to a propane tank is right there at the door. (Apologies for the thumbnails, something happened with the phone update and the large size shows up sideways, but clicking on these enlarges and makes them appear upright…I don't know…).

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There is one more annual tradition, which will be posted soon.  Does anyone else have unusual traditions?