It was Christmas 1967 when the Carr family gathered with tinsel, lights and ornaments to decorate ... "Black Christmas," where African-American families were encouraged to abstain from holiday ...

To their surprise, this Santa did not look like the ones in holiday movies or books — instead, he was a thin African American man ... nativity scenes, ornaments, snow globes, mugs, stockings ...

Housed in the University of Michigan's William L. Clements Library, the books are two of only a handful of African-American family albums in the library's collection of more than 700 albums ...