Presidential and political Christmas traditions have grown into iconic signs of the holiday season.
As the United States approaches its 250th year as an independent nation, Americans can look to the White House for a living record of how faith, family, and politics have endured through political change.
Early Presidential Christmas
Nineteenth-century White House Christmas celebrations were much quieter than today’s festivities.Some of the early first families decorated with wreaths and boughs but were known to bring their family traditions to the presidential residence, and host similarly to how they would if not holding the office.
The first real White House Christmas party is recorded to have taken place in December 1800, when President John Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams held a celebration for their 4-year-old granddaughter, Susanna Boylston Adams. Government officials and their children were invited to the party.
It was another 35 years until President Andrew Jackson began to hold a yearly “frolic” for the children in his household. At that point, it was one of the most elaborate parties to have ever been held at the White House.
The event included a grand dinner and games, and ended with an indoor snowball fight using ammunition made with special cotton balls.
Christmas trees weren’t used in the White House until 1889, when President Benjamin Harrison’s administration placed one in the Oval Office on the second floor. It was decorated by his grandchildren with candles.
Early 20th-Century Traditions
It was President William Taft who laid the groundwork for the public tradition of Christmas decor for the appreciation of others when he and his children, Robert, Helen, and Charlie, put the first Christmas tree on the State Floor of the presidential palace in the Blue Room in 1912.The Tafts were away for Christmas, but left the decorations and tree as a surprise for guests who would be at the White House during their absence.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was also known for his Christmas spirit, with biographers noting that the late president kept Christmas trees with lighted candles in the East Hall of the White House, despite the fire hazard.
It was President Calvin Coolidge who first presided over a national Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 1923.
Roosevelt, who held the office from 1933-1945, also began a tradition of reading Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” to a gathering at the presidential residence.
Modern White House Christmas
An adaptation to the White House Christmas was one of the iconic changes made by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961, when she began to pick a theme for the White House Blue Room tree.That first and enduring tree was the flashpoint for the modern White House theme and expansive decor that is seen through Capitol Hill today.
Just a few years later in 1966, the National Christmas Tree Association began holding a competition to pick the Blue Room tree, and just a few years later in 1969, White House Assistant Executive Chef Hans Raffert began the tradition of an official gingerbread house for the Nixons’ first White House Christmas.
First Lady Nancy Reagan began the tradition of creating a unique Christmas ornament to be sold by the White House Historical Association in 1981.
Since decorating for Christmas became an integral part of the Holiday season in Washington, the record for the number of trees at the White House was held by the Dwight Eisenhower administration, when 26 trees were placed around the mansion in 1959.
Unofficial Traditions
American presidents are known to hand out Christmas clemency and “acts of mercy,” issuing pardons and sentence commutations around the holidays.Additionally, federal employees in departments like Treasury, Interior, and Defense often carol in the hallways and conduct choir performances in government buildings.
In 1955, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) got in on the Christmas magic when a child mistakenly called the combat operations center and asked to speak to Santa Claus. This was due to a mistaken number printed in a Sears advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper.
The on-duty commander, Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, ordered staffers to start tracking Santa in an effort not to disappoint the child.
That tradition continues 70 years later, with more than 1,000 volunteers manning the calls to 1-877-HI-NORAD on Christmas Eve from 4 a.m. to midnight Mountain Standard Time. In 2024, 380,000 calls were placed to Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs—the home of NORAD.
First lady Michelle Obama took part in answering the NORAD Tracks Santa event, fielding calls from concerned children on Christmas Eve 2013, as did the Trumps and the Bidens in later years.
“To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas,” he said. “If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.”
