What should happen is the XINT interrupt should be called by the hardware and set the I bit in the CCR. This will prevent all maskable interrupts. The XINT ISR should end with a rti instruction which will restore the previous state of the CCR. If the I bit was clear before the XINT interrupt, it should now be clear, and the PIT1 interrupt should be taken.
You should be able to monitor the state of the I bit through this process by placing breakpoints.
Are you clearing the I bit in your startup code to enable interrupts?