On the night of January 5, children across Puerto Rico fill shoeboxes with fresh grass for the camels and slide them under their beds. By morning the grass is gone and the gifts have arrived. Here's how the island celebrates Día de Reyes, and how to be there for it.
If you grew up thinking Christmas Day was the end of the holidays, Puerto Rico will rearrange your calendar. Here, the season keeps going for weeks after December 25, and for many families the biggest morning of all is January 6, Three Kings Day. That's when the Three Wise Men, Melchior, Gaspar and Balthazar, arrive with gifts, the way they arrived in Bethlehem. Kids wake up early, families gather for long meals, and the whole island feels like it's taking one more happy day before real life starts again.
It's a beautiful tradition to share with children, and one of the best reasons to stretch a holiday trip into the first week of January. The weather is warm and dry, the beaches are lovely, and the crowds thin out after New Year's. You get the last, sweetest part of a Puerto Rican Christmas.
Three Kings Day, or Día de Reyes, is the celebration on January 6 of the Three Wise Men's visit to the infant Jesus. In Puerto Rico it's a major family holiday and an official public holiday, when children receive gifts from the Kings. It closes the main Christmas season, though celebrations carry on with the octavitas and into January.
The essentials, in one place:
The night before, children gather fresh grass, pack it into a shoebox and leave it under the bed or by the door for the camels. In the morning, the grass is gone and gifts are in its place. The day itself is family time: visits, a big meal, music and, in many towns, parades and celebrations with the Kings themselves.
The grass is the part kids remember forever. Somewhere in the late afternoon of January 5, you'll see children all over the island with scissors or bare hands, pulling fresh grass from the yard and packing it into boxes. Some add a little bowl of water. A few write notes to the Kings. Then everyone goes to bed early, which is a minor miracle in any family, because the Kings only come when the children are asleep.
The morning has the same electric feeling as Christmas morning anywhere: kids running, paper flying, parents on their first coffee. Then the visiting starts. Grandparents, aunts and cousins gather for a long lunch, often with roast pork, arroz con gandules and the last of the season's pasteles, washed down with coquito.
They're one of the island's most loved symbols. You'll see them carved in wood as santos, the traditional hand-carved figures, painted on murals and placed in nativity scenes all season. In Puerto Rican tradition one of the Kings is often shown riding a horse rather than a camel, a local detail that islanders love to point out.
The Kings are also part of the music. Aguinaldos, the traditional Christmas songs, tell their story, and you'll hear them at parrandas, the late-night musical visits friends pay to each other's homes all season. We explained that tradition in What Is a Parranda in Puerto Rico?
For many families, keeping Three Kings Day alive is a point of pride. Even as Santa Claus has become part of the island's Christmas, plenty of homes do both, and some children happily receive gifts twice. Nobody's complaining about that.
Yes, and it's an underrated week. The New Year crowds have gone home, the weather is warm and dry, the beaches are beautiful, and your children get to share a tradition they'll never forget. Hosting your own grass-in-a-shoebox night in a rented house is a lovely family memory.
Here's how a family week around Three Kings Day can look:
A rented house makes the whole thing easier. You have a yard for the grass, a kitchen for the family meal, and space for grandparents to join in. Kids will happily accept that the Kings know exactly where to find a villa in Dorado.
Choose by group size and how close you want the sand. Villas Del Mar puts a big family on its own beachfront with separate apartments. Ville Moderna gives you villas with yards and full kitchens a short walk from the beach. Terrazas suits a smaller family right on the beachfront.
Aqua Dorado has been hosting families in Dorado for nine years, with a 4.82 rating across more than 950 reviews on our travel listing sites. If you're planning the whole holiday stretch, read Is Puerto Rico in December Worth It for Families? and Where Should You Spend New Year's Eve in Puerto Rico?
Choose your stay by family size, enter your dates and book directly on aquadorado.com.
January 6, every year. Children leave grass for the Kings' camels on the night of January 5 and find gifts on the morning of the 6th.
Yes. January 6 is an official public holiday, and it's one of the biggest family days of the year.
The grass is food for the Kings' camels after their long journey. Children pack it into shoeboxes under their beds, and in the morning the grass is gone and gifts have arrived.
Many families celebrate both. Santa Claus may visit on Christmas, and the Three Kings bring gifts on January 6.
The octavitas continue the celebrations for eight more days, and the San Sebastián Street Festival fills Old San Juan with music later in January.
Yes. It's warm and dry, with festive traditions in the first weeks and fewer crowds once New Year has passed.
Share the grass, the gifts and a warm January morning by the sea. Book directly.
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