Epiphany (A Christian event involving the revelation that Jesus was the Son of God, and associated with the "3 Kings" who came bearing gifts) is a fairly big deal in France. It's not a public holiday, but it is a commonly celebrated day, which always falls on January 6th, which is 12 days after Christmas (hence the song).
And as part of the celebration, eating King Cake is a standard tradition. I'd never heard of this until last year when one of my friends who grew up in New Orleans mentioned it, but the basic idea is that you eat a special cake on Epiphany and buried inside the cake is a little trinket (sometimes a tiny plastic baby (aka Jesus), or a small cartoon character, or sometimes just an almond) and whoever gets the slice that contained that trinket is king for the day.
We actually had then a Galette party at work then, and I managed to get one of the slices (out of the 5 cakes) that had the trinklet. It was a little ceramic scroll. They're also sold with a paper crown (think Burger King) so you have to wear that too.
So on the way home I picked one a Galette des Rois of my own so Kara and her family could try it out. They're a bit pricy but they do feed a decent number of people so I suppose it averages out. And some of them can get really fancy. Kara managed to find the trinket on the first slice!
The cake is amazingly delicious by the way, though Kara wasn't a fan because she didn't like the almondy taste. But I loved it. Apparently you can only get them around this time of the year though (or at least easily get them, I suppose like my difficult attempt to get Beaujolais right before NYE they're available all year just hard to find).
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