At Mario Angioni and Marirosa Pitzanti's house, it's Christmas all year round . Just enter and, immediately to the right, there is the room of the nativity scene , which is never removed. And not only for Christian feelings.
“It would be too complicated to undo it now,” the two say . And given its size, it’s no surprise. 50 pieces, four meters long and two meters wide. Enough to fill the entire room.
And in Sestu, in via San Gemiliano 62, it has become an attraction. “We built it in fifteen years, gradually, one piece after another, one house at a time,” they say.
The passion began with Mario: “It started when I was 8 years old, I made my first nativity scene on a stool. I called the neighbors to show them”. And he never stopped: “I bought more beautiful and detailed figurines, maybe even moving ones. Then I met Marirosa, and she liked the nativity scene too”.
A love born between meadows and mountains of cardboard with a border of adhesive tape. “I take care of the construction part,” says Marirosa. “I made the houses and caves myself, with polystyrene that I carved, while for some palm trees I used papier-mâché.” Then she specifies: “The stable is in a cave, because according to some Gospels it is a cave, according to others a stable, but in reality at that time houses and stables were sometimes dug into the rock, so both versions are correct.”
Mario turns off the light, presses a switch and the magic happens: first a storm descends on the sky of the nativity scene, then the stars return, the comet arrives, and the miracle of every year is here again .
The statues move, there is the shepherd and the tinsmith, the sheep and the camel grazing hay. And even real mushrooms, among the moss, while water flows in a stream. "We bought some statues in Cagliari in a shop that later closed, others on the internet, one was even made to order just for us", the two say.
What is so special about the nativity scene? “It makes us feel like children again,” says Mario with a smile that reaches his eyes. “And to think that in the beginning it was only supposed to be the Holy Family.” And for some time now it has become a famous nativity scene: “Catechism classes come to see it, sometimes they come from outside, also thanks to word of mouth, and there are those who have come from Oristano,” says Mario.
