Christmas Decorations at the White House
This will be Jill Biden’s (First lady to Jo Biden) first Christmas decorating the White House.
Jill Biden has something quite extraordinary prepared for the 2021 Christmas Season.
The Christmas season is finally here! People all over the United States have already started hanging up Christmas ornaments on their trees and making their homes festive for the holidays. The very first house that people are excited to see this year’s Christmas Decorations from is the White House. This year is especially important because it is the first Christmas that President Jo Biden and his First Lady Jill Biden will be in the White House. Many Americans are eager to see a glimpse of what Jill Biden has done to decorate the White House. Decorating the White House for Christmas is no small task. According to the official White House website, it took over 41 Christmas trees, 10,000+ ornaments, 6,000 feet of ribbon, over 79,000 lights, and 25 wreaths just to decorate most of the White House. It has also taken many months of planning most of the time beginning in January of the current year. Jill Biden as every first lady has the last 60 years gets the wonderful privilege of choosing this year’s Christmas theme, and she chose “Gifts From The Heart” .
Decorating the White House is a long-standing tradition that has been going on for over two-centuries starting in 1800 with our second presidents first lady Abigail Adams. Jackie Kennedy was the 1st first lady to decide that her and all the future first ladies would be the ones to oversee one of the most important tasks of the year which is decorating the White House for Christmas. She also decided to start the tradition of first lady’s picking the theme for Christmas at the White House which reflects everything that you see in every decoration they put up. Picking the theme is super important because it helps reflects everything the country had gone through in that specific year, and it is also important because it gives people hope for the new year. Some themes that some of the first ladies have done in the past are as follows: Nutcracker (Jackie Kennedy), Home for the Holidays (Laura Bush), Reflect, Rejoice, Renew (Michelle Obama), and lastly the most recent former first lady’s, Time-Honored Traditions (Melania Trump).
Although Jill Biden has been at the White House for Christmas before (Jo Biden served at the Vice President for Barrack Obama from 2009-2017) this is her first time being the first lady for Christmas. Since Jill Biden’s theme is a Gift from the heart, she decorated many rooms in the White House based off that idea. Some of the ideas she had put into action were: A gift of service (to thank all our military personal), Gift of Learning (to thank all of the educators throughout the last couple years), A Gift of Visual Arts (to express all people and all their ideas), A Gift of Friendship and Sharing, A Gift of Gratitude, A Gift of Nature, A Gift of Peace and Unity, A Gift of the Preforming Arts, A Gift of Family, and lastly A Gift of Faith and Community. All the themes are especially important since this country has had a tough year and a half. All the rooms this year are very colorful as well to encourage American’s that life will only get brighter in the future. Lucia Ghoreishi, a Sophomore at Lafayette High School, had some very insightful opinions about the White House decorations. “They bring me joy and give me hope for the new year,” she said. Katie Motes a Sophomore at Lafayette High School shared a very personal thought about A gift of peace and Unity. ” We need more peace and unity in this world we live in today, things need to get better,” Motes added.
Jill Biden has done an extraordinary job with decorating the White House is year. Unfortunately, due to Covid there will not be any in-person tours this Christmas, however there are still a few ways to see all the wonderful rooms inside the white house and the exterior of the building as well. The first being on YouTube and there are many videos that will show you a couple second preview of every room in the White House. Another way you can look at all the rooms in the White House is going to this website and you will be able to see all the rooms and a little detail of what each of them mean.
