In Mexico, piñatas are not just child’s play. They’re a 400-year-old tradition

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ
Associated Press

ACOLMAN, Mexico (AP) — María de Lourdes Ortiz Zacarías swiftly cuts hundreds of strips of newsprint and colored crepe paper needed to make a piñata, soothed by Norteño music on the radio while she measures by feel. She has been doing this since she was a child, in the family-run business alongside her late mother in the Mexican town of Acolman. Business is steady all year, mainly with birthday parties, but it really picks up around Christmas with the most traditional style of piñata: a sphere with seven spiky cones that represent the seven deadly sins. Ortiz Zacarías says piñata-making is her legacy, and her 18-year-old son is the fourth generation to take up the centuriesold craft.