(31 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mexico City, Mexico – 30 January 2025
1. Baby Jesus figurine being repaired
2. Artisan making plaster arm for broken figurine
3. Artisan spray-painting figurine
4. Sign that reads (Spanish): "We repair baby Jesuses"
5. Dressed-up figurines
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Marina Sánchez, craftswoman:
++SOUNDBITE ENTIRELY OVERLAID OVER SHOTS 5-9++
"It might be cheaper to buy a new one. But it’s not so much who you buy it from, but who gave it to you. The reason why you have it."
7. Nuns walking past baby Jesus figurines on display at market
8. Artisan repairing figurine’s head
9. Broken figurine
10. Spoon with plaster sinking in bucket
11. Artisan repairing figurine
12. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Marina Sánchez, craftswoman:
"One piece can take 10, 20, 30 minutes. It depends on the baby’s fracture."
13. Close of Sánchez drawing nail on figurine’s new finger: UPSOUND (Spanish): "We are going to draw a little fingernail on it."
14. People waiting at Sánchez’s repair stand
15. Close of person carrying baby Jesus statuette wrapped in cloth
16. Close of Asia Borges’ baby Jesus statuette, UPSOUND (Spanish): "He has been with us for 16 years and we see him as a good luck charm baby."
17. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Asia Borges, fitness coach:
"The baby has had accidents, but he has never… He has a scar here. A curtain rod fell on him, but he didn’t break apart. It was just like a wound. It didn’t break."
18. People walking down street
19. Sign that reads (Spanish): "Baby Jesus’ tailor"
20. Baby Jesus figurines on display
21. Figurines in different skin tones
22. Various of woman holding baby Jesus miniature
STORYLINE:
Running against time, dozens of people meticulously fix broken limbs and reconstruct disfigured faces — but with plaster, gouges and sandpaper.
Rows of busy artisans filled a bustling market in downtown Mexico City Thursday to restore the fragile baby Jesus figurines that many Catholic families keep at home in Mexico.
As if in an operating room, the worn and broken baby Jesuses crowded work tables, awaiting repairs in time for their annual pilgrimage to church this Sunday.
On February 2, Catholics mark the Dia de la Candelaria or Candlemas, when the newborn Christ must look his best for his first visit to church.
Marking the end of Christmas celebrations, the Catholic feast day commemorates the Virgin Mary’s purification and Jesus’ presentation at the temple.
Most of the figurines – often passed down from generation to generation – spend the Christmas season in Nativity scenes displayed in homes.
They are placed in creches at midnight on Christmas Day and families celebrate the occasion by swaddling the statue and rocking it while singing a lullaby.
They are typically handled with care, but accidents happen.
Some are dropped or cracked while being dressed up; others need their paint touched up or their missing fingers replaced; and many more come wrapped in cloth, broken into pieces.
Marina Sánchez, 61, has been repairing the beloved statuettes since she was 18.
Holding a putty knife with a steady hand, Sánchez went about this meticulous task as some impatient clients stood nearby, eagerly waiting for their infants to be ready.
"It might be cheaper to buy a new one. But it’s not so much who you buy it from, but who gave it to you," she explains.
Back home, they will be dressed up in special-made saint costumes to comply with a major guideline of the celebration: every year, Jesus must wear a new outfit.
AP Video by Martín Silva Rey
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