{"id":1241,"date":"2016-12-07T22:51:04","date_gmt":"2016-12-08T03:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/?p=1241"},"modified":"2018-04-16T12:58:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:58:44","slug":"the-last-obama-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/the-last-obama-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Obama Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1242\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/gingerbreadhouse.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"378\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/gingerbreadhouse.jpeg 900w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/gingerbreadhouse-300x214.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/gingerbreadhouse-768x549.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/gingerbreadhouse-600x429.jpeg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The unofficial start to the DC Christmas season begins with the arrival of the White House Blue Room Christmas Tree. \u00a0In conjunction with the National Christmas Tree Association, the Chief Usher travels to some of America&#8217;s finest Christmas tree farms to find the perfect tree for the Executive Residence. This year the 19-foot Balsam-Veitch fir cross came Dave and Mary Vander Velden\u2019s Whispering Pines Tree Farm in Oconto, Wisconsin.\u00a0\u00a0 The now iconic horse drawn carriage, with the tree on board, was greeted by Mrs. Obama, first pets, Bo and Sunny along with her nephews, Austin and\u00a0Aaron Robinson the day after Thanksgiving. The Blue Room chandelier was taken down and the White House Christmas volunteers quickly decorated the \u201cWe the People\u201d tree in time for Mrs. Obama\u2019s official unveiling of the theme and decorations to the media.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The theme for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/about\/inside-white-house\/holidays-2016\">Obama\u2019s last White House Christmas<\/a> will be \u201cA gift for the Holidays.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Guests coming to tour the White House decorations will receive the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/sites\/whitehouse.gov\/files\/documents\/2016%20WH%20Tourbook%20for%20WEB.pdf\">custom tour book<\/a> that describes all the decorations and rooms. There are five gift themes this year:<\/p>\n<p>The Gift of Service and Sacrifice<\/p>\n<p>The Gift of Education<\/p>\n<p>The Gift of Good Health<\/p>\n<p>The Gift of Families<\/p>\n<p>The Gift of Joyful Memories<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To schedule your own tour of the White House please contact the office of your member of Congress.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-1244\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/weThePeopleTree.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"574\" height=\"861\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/weThePeopleTree.jpeg 900w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/weThePeopleTree-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/weThePeopleTree-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/weThePeopleTree-400x600.jpeg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 574px) 100vw, 574px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The unofficial start to the DC Christmas season begins with the arrival of the White House Blue Room Christmas Tree. \u00a0In conjunction with the National Christmas Tree Association, the Chief Usher travels to some of America&#8217;s finest Christmas tree farms to find the perfect tree for the Executive Residence. This year the 19-foot Balsam-Veitch fir&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/the-last-obama-christmas\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-at-the-white-house","category-white-house-wednesdays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1245,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/1245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}