In the spirit of the holidays, we’ll talk less law, elections, and congressional procedure. This week, we’re looking at the history of White House Christmas Tree Lightings and the associated festivities.
A President’s Holiday Spirit
Christmas has always been more or less of a spectacle in the White House, with George Washington known for his “Twelve Days of Christmas” that featured banquets, dancing, and family, friends, and officials. George and Martha Washington were also known to send out handwritten invitations.
In December 1800, President John Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams threw the party for their four-year-old granddaughter, Susanna Boylston Adams. Government officials and their children were invited.
Andrew Jackson’s (D-TN) 1835 party is regarded, according to whitehousehistory.org, as one of the most “elaborate parties ever held at the White House”, including games, a “grand” dinner, and an “indoor ‘snowball’ fight” with cotton balls.
The first known Christmas Tree to occupy the White House was in 1853 or 1856 under President Franklin Pierce (D-NH). Details remain scarce on this account, but many estimate that it was to cheer up his wife after the death of their son prior to him taking office.
The first documented decorated Christmas Tree was put upstairs in the Second Floor Oval Room, which was used as a family parlor and library at the time, in 1889 under President Benjamin Harrison (R-IN). The candles with which the tree was decorated were for the Harrison grandchildren. Documents suggest that the first tree lit with electric lights was in 1894 under President Grover Cleveland (D-NY); electricity had been installed in the White House in 1891.
Christmas trees were not always decorated at the White House, however, as this was a more common practice when children occupied the premises, and if it was in line with the First Family’s beliefs. At the turn of the century, the custom of a Christmas Tree in the house was not as widespread a custom as it is today.
This led to the myth that President Theodore Roosevelt (R-NY) banned Christmas Trees at the White House, in line with his staunch conservationist ideals. The simple truth is that his family did not traditionally celebrate Christmas with a tree. Although, in 1902, Archie Roosevelt snuck a small tree into the White House and hid it in his closet. When he revealed the decorated tree to his family, the Christmas Tree became a tradition for the Roosevelts.
President William Howard Taft’s (R-OH) children were the first to put a tree in the Blue Room on the State Floor in 1912. President and Helen Taft were away in Panama, so the tree was a surprise to the entire family and extended family that year. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower would also put a tree in the Blue Room in the 1950s. The Blue Room would retain its inner-White House appeal, as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 began the tradition of selecting a theme for the official tree in the Blue Room. Kennedy’s theme that year was toys, birds, angels, and characters from the Nutcracker Suite ballet.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY) was known for having a Christmas Tree lit with candles in the East Hall and for reading Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol’. These family traditions were documented in Alonzo Fields’ My 21 Years in the White House (1960). Fields was the maitre d’ and butler.
More modern presidents have also indulged their Christmas and holiday spirits. Jimmy Carter (D-GA) was the first president to light a public menorah in 1979, Ronald Reagan (R-CA) was known for dressing up as Santa Claus at White House Christmas parties, and Bill Clinton (D-AR) was known for making the reading of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas an annual event.
A Public Spectacle
The first public National Tree lighting was held in 1923, under President Calvin Coolidge (R-MA). The idea began with Frederick Morris Feiker, an engineer who had been a technical journalist for General Electric from 1906-07 and editor of Electrical World and Electrical Merchandising from 1915-21. Feiker joined the staff for then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover (R-IA). The Society for Electrical Development was looking to encourage Americans to buy Christmas lights and use electricity. Feiker, along with Senator Frank L. Green (R-VT), convinced Coolidge to start the tradition.
On December 24, 1923, Coolidge lit the tree situated on the White House Ellipse. The tree was a forty-eight-foot Balsam fir. The event was attended by about 3,000 people, according to the National Park Service (NPS).
From then until 1953, the National Tree would move around various points on the White House grounds. In 1954, the annual ceremony would return to the Ellipse and the concept was expanded. Local civic groups and businesses donated the Christmas Pageant of Peace, featuring smaller trees representing the fifty states, five territories, and the District of Columbia.
The National Christmas Tree Association has held their yearly competition since 1966 for the official White House tree each year. Growers must win their state or regional competitions in order to qualify. 2025’s tree came from Korson’s Tree Farms in Sidney, Michigan, marking the first time Michigan has supplied the White House with its Christmas Tree in forty years. The nineteen-foot Concolor fir is displayed appropriately in the Blue Room.
Other annual traditions include gingerbread houses, first created in 1969 by White House Assistant Executive Chef Hans Raffert. It was a first under the administration of President Richard Nixon (R-CA) and continues today.
The record number of trees in the White House was held by President Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-KS). In 1959, Eisenhower’s administration filled the mansion with twenty-six trees. That record has since been surpassed by the Bushes’ Nutcracker theme featuring forty-seven trees in 1990; the Clintons’ ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas theme with thirty-two trees in 1995; the Bushes’ Home for the Holidays theme with forty-nine trees in 2001; the Obamas’ A Timeless Tradition theme with sixty-two trees in 2015; and the Trump’s forty-one trees and more than forty topiary trees in the East Colonnade in 2018.
Odds and Ends
Since 1961, thirteen Blue Room trees have hailed from North Carolina. In second place is Pennsylvania with eleven trees, and coming in for the bronze is Wisconsin with eight. Washington (7 trees) and West Virginia (4) fill out the middle, with Ohio and Michigan at three each, Indiana, New York, and Oregon at one each, and Massachusetts, Missouri, and Vermont tied at one apiece. One tree was anonymously donated from New England and one tree’s origin remains unknown.
Since 1961, fifty-nine of those trees have been firs, seven have been spruces, and just one has been a pine.
