By tradition, the Blue Room is the place of honor for the official White House Christmas tree. This year an eighteen-and-one- half-foot Douglas fir was presented to The President and Mrs. Clinton by Paul and Sharon Shealer, and their children Briana and Paul, of Evergreen Acres Tree Farm in Auburn, Pennsylvania. The Shealers won the honor after being name the National 2000 Grand Champion Grower by the National Christmas Tree Association. To decorate this regal tree, we have chosen a sampling from all our past ornaments. The velvet tree skirt you see has adorned the base of the Blue Room tree every year since 1993, when it was designed by individuals from each of the fifty states, territories and the District of Columbia in celebration of our first holiday season at the White House. The Blue Room pier tables also showcase art from the White House Collection of American Crafts.

One of our favorite holiday pastimes is sneaking down to the State Floor late at night, after all our daily visitors have left, to marvel at the glistening balls created by glass artists, the hand-stitched hats and mittens created by The Knitting Guild of America, the beautiful ornaments hand-painted by the Society of Decorative Painters, and the fantastic needlepoint designs stitched by the American Needlepoint Guild and The Embroiderers’ Guild of America. Socks was especially happy one year when his likeness, rendered in needlepoint, crowned the Blue Room tree. In 1999, premier craftsmen from across the country decorated this tree with reproductions of historical objects such as furniture, tin, silver, pottery, oil paintings and paper cuttings, to name but a few.

As you enter the Red Room, you can’t help being tempted, as our dog Buddy was, by the edible mantelpiece created by New York cake artist Colette Peters. Ms. Peters has created a confectionery masterpiece depicting the scene she designed for our 1998 theme, Winter Wonderland. Each of the tables in the Red Room is decorated with charming snowmen created by fabric artists in 1998. The traditional cranberry tree sits atop the most important piece of American Empire furniture in the White House collection, the marble-top center table made in New York around 1810 by Charles-Honoré Lannuier.