El Niño Perdido (The Lost Child)
Members of the community light candles outside their homes and along the sidewalks every year on December 7th to help Jesus (the lost child) find his parents. The tradition is based on the Bible story in which a young Jesus gets separated from his family during a festival in Jerusalem and his parents search for him for three days (Luke 2:41-52). When they find him, he is sitting in the temple having discussions with the Jewish teachers. The celebration of the lost child was reportedly started by a friar in the north of Veracruz several centuries ago as part of an evangelization effort, but has been embraced by local communities and continued ever since. Here are some photographs from that night: .