Nina Santucci Pozgar

Growing up in a family with three boys and three girls in a small town in

Western Massachusetts during the 1960s was special in its simplicity, as I look back now. My father was Italian, and my mother was what I liked to call a pretend Italian.

Christmas is important to Italian families, and ours was no exception.

My mom prepared our house for weeks, baking cookies, decorating, wrapping and planning menus. The highlight for her though, was the family Christmas card with us as the stars. We, however, did not look forward to what she saw as her ultimate creative achievement every year. 

Depicted in the above photograph is one of her favorite creations-the Santuccis re-enacting the Nativity. Our sister Gina was not born at that time, so she missed out on all of these vignettes.  My mother could not sew, which meant that she had to use what she could find in our attic or in her closet. For that picture, for example, I was the Virgin

Mary, dressed in one of my mom’s light beach cover ups with a hood for my veil. One of her gold scarves was wrapped around my neck.      

Having an acting/directing background was very helpful not only for setting the scenes for these Christmas cards, but for raising a family of six. As we grew older and discussed those cards, we could not imagine the organization and patience it took to costume, set up and then keep five children quietly in place for an hour while they were being photographed.

Whenever I look at this photo, I feel happy and think that our mother wanted to show us that Christmas is more than opening presents. She was proud to show off her kids but in a very unusual way.