Christmas at the W House

I’m dreaming of a white. . .house. THE White House, as a matter of fact. See, between now and the ’08 elections, I plan to provide enormous amounts of publicity to Presidential candidate Tom Vilsack by making fun of his name. I figure when he wins, he’ll make me one of the select few who get invited to a White House Christmas party.

Although this week I learned that the “select few” may not be so select, and certainly ain’t no few. Seems that some 45,000 people tour the White House during the holidays, with about 25,000 of them invited there by the First Couple to par-tay.

These are just a couple of the privileged, strictly confidential, “insider” factoids that can be learned by absolutely anyone who visits the official White House holiday website (www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/2006) or watches an HGTV special titled “White House Christmas.” Check these out, and you too can learn that the White House kitchens will bake a measly 20,000 cookies this month. Meaning there’ll be some serious elbow-throwing among those 45,000 visitors to reach them first. (An elbowing tip: aim for your opponent’s Vilsack.)

The theme for this year’s White House holiday is “Deck the Halls and Welcome All.” And the White House halls are certainly well-decked. For you stat freaks, here’s a rundown of what’s on display:
> 4,638 red ornament balls;
> 269 wreaths;
> 17 trees;
> 1,089 feet of garland;
> 0 portraits of Bill Clinton.

I learned from the White House website that many of the mansion’s rooms are known by their wall colors, though none of them echoes the famous monochromatic exterior. Instead you'll find the Blue Room, the Green Room, the Red Room, the Martha Stewart's Mounting Dusk with Sherwin-Williams Shantung Trim Room.

All of these rooms and more are shown to the select 45,000 that take the 2006 White House holiday tour, a tour previewed for the press just before the holiday party season got underway. Laura Bush led the press tour, and the White House-dot-gov website posted transcripts of her remarks to the Big Three TV networks (Nickelodeon, ESPN and ESPN2).

This is an extremely brave move by the First Lady and her advisors, because these transcripts capture every darn word she spoke, including expressions that sound like the artful articulations we’re used to hearing from her husband. My favorite was when she referred to a painting of President Martin Van Buren’s daughter-in-law, Angelica Van Buren, as portraying “the beautiful Angelica Huston.”

Surprisingly, no reporters asked the First Lady about the decorations in the Bush’s private White House living quarters. Fortunately, the HGTV crew had the good luck to accidentally stumble upon these rooms (they were fleeing the Presidential bakers after eating 3,000 of their 20,000 cookies).

This gives viewers a chance to see the Presidential family’s Official Private Christmas Stocking Display. The stockings are hung by the chimney with care; a couple sizable ones for Jenna and Barbara, an average sized one for Laura, and a great stinkin’ huuuuge one for W. How big is it? It looks to me like it holds as much as six Vilsacks.

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TakefiveT5@yahoo.com