NEW AT THE White House this Christmas: penguins, snowmen and snowwomen, and hanging snowflakes.
Returning for the holiday season: larger-than-life replicas of the Obamas’ dogs Bo and Sunny, an 18-and-a-half-foot tree dedicated to US military families and a gingerbread White House — covered in dark chocolate, instead of white chocolate as in years past, and weighing in at nearly 500 pounds.
In all, some 62 trees and 70,000 ornaments, most of them reused from years past, decorate the White House this year.
The Fraser tree that dominates the Blue Room features messages to US troops from their families on a ribbon that wraps around the tree.
White House visitors are greeted at the East Wing entrance by a family of plywood penguins before walking down a hallway with paper snowflakes hanging overhead.
There’s one snowflake for each state and US territory, along with others made by local schoolchildren who adorned them with hand-written wishes.
Outside the hallway windows, 56 snowmen and women, some wearing hats and scarves or earmuffs, look on from the first lady’s garden.
And there are presents pretty much everywhere.
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