IRISH TRAVEL & CULTURE GUIDE
FALL - WINTER 2012
November 2012
KENNEDY CHRISTMAS:
At the White House, 1962
The trees were strung, the stockings were hung, and President John F. Kennedy, his wife Jackie and their two children, Caroline and John, Jr., enjoyed a wonderful Christmas holiday at the White House in December 1962. Sadly it would be their final Christmas celebration together.
President Kennedy flipped the switch to light the national Christmas tree at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 17, 1962 at the White House Ellipse Grounds. The president paid special tribute to the troops abroad, and reflected on how “Christmas offers a respite in our lives, a respite for meditation, for reappraisal, for rededication.” He said that at Christmas, “The daily clamor and bustle must yield before the promptings of eternity.”
The U.S. Marine Band and the Tuskeegee Institute Choir from Alabama provided music for the ceremony and eight reindeer from the National Zoo, a life-size nativity scene, and a Yule log were also part of the festivities. The tree was a 72 foot blue spruce from Colorado, and was decorated with 5,000 multicolored lights and 4,000 ornaments.
In Boston, Channel Four interrupted its regular broadcasting to show the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.
Inside the White House, at the entrance foyer, stood a 16 foot “Nutcracker Tree… trimmed with candy canes and toys…every branch laden with trinkets, toys and sweets.” It had been “Mrs. Kennedy’s wish to decorate the White House in the style of an old time country home,” with “holly and untrimmed fir trees…throughout the mansion, and bunches of mistletoe hung from the door,” according to United Press International.
The White House Christmas Card in 1962 featured a photograph of Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline, and John Jr. in a sleigh drawn by Caroline’s pony Macaroni on the south lawn of the White House.
The Kennedy family spent Christmas Day in Palm Beach, Florida, where they attended mass at St. Edward’s Church. Five year old Caroline got a talking doll from Santa Claus, while two year old John received a helicopter.
Mrs. Kennedy gave President Kennedy a gift of scrimshaw to add to his cherished collection. It was a 9 ½ x 4 ½ inch molar from the jawbone of a whale, with an inscription of the Presidential seal sketched on it by scrimshaw artist Delano Milton, a distant relative of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
For more information about the Kennedy presidency, visit the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston any time of the year.