It’s the time of year! As families across the globe are preparing to decorate their homes for the holiday season, but this is not much compared to the effort and preparations that go into making it done to get that White House ready for Christmas. Here’s everything you didn’t know about the upcoming White House Christmas tree, designed by the previous White House florist Laura Dowling.
The White House Christmas tree
The original White House Christmas tree was placed on the second-floor Yellow Oval Room in 1889. The year was 1889, Benjamin Harrison was serving as the 23rd president of the United States. The tree was put up for his children and was decorated with candles and toys. Find out more about which president banned Christmas trees in the white house.
Hoovers Which Started Blue Room Tree
First Lady and President Lou Henry Hoover started the never-ending tradition of the Christmas tree being placed in the Blue Room of the White House.
the First Lady picks the theme for each year.
The selection of the decor for decorating the White House during the Christmas season is decided by first lady Jaqueline Kennedy. This tradition was first introduced in the year of first lady Jaqueline Kennedy’s election in 1961. (She chose to choose the Nutcracker Suite theme.
It’s the truth that it takes an entire year to design and plan to plan the White House decorations. It involves a lot of planning, using sketches, colors, design elements, and themes for each space within the White House.
Volunteers are key
To meet the stringent deadline before the Christmas season, over 100 volunteers help sort and set up, and then install the White House Christmas tree ornaments each season.
The preparation work is done offsite
The five-day time frame of installation. The first two days after Thanksgiving are spent preparing and organizing the decorations such as wreaths ribbons, wreaths, ribbons decorations, and flowers in the warehouse the place where they’re stored, as well as at the White House, where they’ll be displayed.
Accidents do happen
Some rules must be followed to keep the White House a place of amazing American art and also as the official residence of The president of the United States. In the words of Dowling who is the official White House florist under the Obama Administration, “One year one of the employees working during the Christmas season had a mistake and put the glittery fabric in the creche of the 18th century, which was waiting to be put in the East Room, she wrote in the book The White House Christmas.
It takes around 25 people to build the trees.
“The Blue Room tree often has a distinct theme (that is linked to the overall White House Christmas theme) -It could be e.g. “America the Beautiful” and “Joining Forces” and Winter Wonderland, etc.
The Christmas tree is chosen at the end of October.
Every year each year, the White House Florist and the Association of American Christmas Tree Growers find the perfect tree that fulfills certain criteria. The selection of the White House tree is a long-standing tradition that is held each year at the beginning of autumn.
Sometimes the tree is simply too big.
When the Association of American Christmas Tree Growers chooses the perfect ornament for Christmas This year, the tree was too big to be able to fit inside the White House.
All pets belonging to the First Family are included in the décor
Each year is full of issues and complications, but some years stand out that, in the words of Dowling. These projects that we completed in 2010 stand out because of their scope and ambition, for instance, an illustration of Bo, the First Family dog Bo made using 40,000 pipes, in black and white.
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Over 3500 of the ornaments currently in use
During the Christmas season, more than 3,500 ornaments (along with many thousands of efficient LED lights) are placed on different Christmas trees at The White House.