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Few White Home traditions are fairly as time-honored or cherished because the annual Christmas celebrations it hosts – which stretch again greater than a century and transcend partisan politics, imbuing the president’s official residence with a sense of continuity and heat.
However the sense of togetherness and cheer needn’t cease on the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Like most households, U.S. presidents and first women have lengthy used annual Christmas playing cards to share their vacation greeting to mates each close to and much – speaking well-wishes, gratitude and, at occasions, delicate political statements.
This is a have a look at how the custom of the White Home Christmas card started, and the way it has advanced all through the years.
FIRST LADY MELANIA TRUMP DECORATES THE WHITE HOUSE FOR CHRISTMAS: ‘HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS’
Christmas timber within the Cross Corridor of the White Home throughout a media tour of the decorations on Dec. 1, 2025. The theme of the 2025 White Home Christmas decorations is “Residence Is The place The Coronary heart Is.” (Al Drago/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs)
Historians aren’t fairly positive when presidents started sending out Christmas playing cards, although many acknowledge that the observe in all probability started in an unofficial capability within the late 1800s, with the recipients seemingly restricted to a smaller group.
In reality, it was not till 1927 that President Calvin Coolidge wrote what would change into the primary “official” Christmas card to the American folks. Coolidge, in response to a number of requests for a vacation greeting, penned a brief, easy message, “Season’s Greetings,” by hand within the distinctive, elegant type of cursive he was identified for.
The missive was revealed by each main newspaper within the nation, kicking off what would change into a bigger, extra elaborate custom that continues to this present day.
Within the years that adopted, the Christmas greetings took the type of particular person playing cards, and the checklist of recipients grew longer and extra expansive. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon every sought to make it a extra formal custom, with Eisenhower including Cupboard secretaries, members of Congress, and U.S. ambassadors abroad to the checklist of recipients.
MELANIA TRUMP GIVES TOUR OF 2018 WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS DECOR
President Donald Trump and first girl Melania Trump of their official Christmas portrait. (The White Home)
Beneath Nixon, the playing cards had been mass printed for the primary time, and despatched to a wider viewers – some 40,000 folks – an enterprise that may have been unimaginable in Coolidge’s time, when the hand-printed “Season’s Greetings” message was drafted by hand with painstaking care and element.
Right now, the Republican and Democratic nationwide events are liable for printing the Christmas playing cards; because of this, the lists embrace (however should not restricted to) get together donors and marketing campaign supporters, amongst others.
WHITE HOUSE UNVEILS CHRISTMAS DECOR WITH ‘SPIRIT OF AMERICA’ THEME
First girl Melania Trump speaks with a lady at a Toys for Tots charity drive occasion at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Dec. 8, 2025, in Virginia. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photograph)
Whereas neither get together has launched an official rely of the playing cards it has despatched out on behalf of current presidents, the RNC is estimated to have printed some 1.5 million White Home Christmas playing cards throughout George W. Bush’s presidency – a quantity that grew beneath Presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Trump in his first time period and this yr.
Different technological advances permit even these with out deep pockets to share within the Christmas pleasure.
The White Home social media accounts have embraced the rise of social media lately to share the official Christmas photographs, increasing the attain and message of the commander in chief, and infrequently the remainder of his household.
The White Home accounts on Tuesday shared the official 2025 Christmas portrait of President Donald Trump and first girl Melania Trump.
This yr’s printed White Home Christmas card expands on Melania Trump’s 2025 White Home Christmas theme, “Residence Is The place the Coronary heart Is,” which she stated was impressed by the “joys, challenges, and frequent movement derived from motherhood and enterprise.”
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“This Christmas, let’s have a good time the love we maintain inside ourselves, and share it with the world round us,” she stated in a assertion saying the theme. “In any case, wherever we’re, we are able to create a house crammed with grace, radiance, and countless potentialities.”
