The Holiday Bash : Pinata Maker Turns Out Party Centerpieces Designed for Destruction

Cecilia Chacon takes a pounding every December.

She doesn’t mind, though. It’s her way of delivering Christmas cheer to children in Los Angeles.

Chacon is working nonstop making pinatas--those candy-filled, papier-mache reindeer, stars and snowmen that are centerpieces at Latino holiday parties.

It takes her three hours to mold and decorate each pinata. But it can take a blindfolded child just a few moments to smash one open with a stick.

“The first time I spent so long making one I had mixed feelings when I thought about it being destroyed,” Chacon said. “But now I feel happy when children break it. They’re happy--they’re having fun.”

Chacon, 35, was talking as she worked in the back of her tiny Vermont Avenue pinata factory. She was surrounded by 53 half-finished figures hanging from a homemade assembly line.

In front of her was a three-foot-tall Santa Claus. The customer who ordered it had supplied a Santa illustration torn from an advertisement to be her guide. The $33.99 St. Nick is one of 400 holiday pinatas that Chacon will sell this month.

In the Mexican tradition, pinatas are part of the celebration that follows the posada , the festivities during the nine days before Christmas that re-enact the journey of Mary and Joseph in search of lodging before the birth of Jesus.

The pinata is thought to have originated in Italy. It was a fixture in Spain in the 16th Century when Spanish colonizers took it to Mexico. These days, it is also popular throughout Central America and in parts of South America, according to Chacon, who learned her craft in a village marketplace in El Salvador. She moved here 12 years ago.

Most pinatas--like the thousands sold each holiday season by the B. J. Bros. party store in East Los Angeles--are imported from Mexico.

But those made here by Chacon and other artisans are larger and fancier. Because they are reinforced with wire, some are strong enough to hold as much as four pounds of candy.

Chacon stapled a black crepe-paper belt around the red-suited figure, adjusted its white cotton beard and then smiled. She said she will leave her work behind when her family celebrates Christmas at her Chino home.

There will be a decorated tree, an exchange of gifts and a turkey dinner, she said.

But no pinata.