Presidential Holiday Parties Throughout History

Fire in the West Wing

The children’s Christmas party of 1929 was a memorable one, to say the least. While hosting the party, the President and Mrs. Hoover discovered that an electrical fire broke out in the West Wing. We have to hand it to Mrs. Hoover for her calm handling of the situation.

Even though the fire destroyed the Oval Office, instead of sending the children home, she escorted them to a different section of the house and had the band play louder to drown out the sound of the fire engines. Now that is thinking on your feet but being the first lady, we’d assume you have to be clever.

Too Many Christmas Cards

Christmas cards were not typically sent out as a way to wish others a happy holiday until later in the 1800s. Slowly, the tradition took hold but by the 1970s there were too many cards to count for President Carter. He had a fiasco on his hands.

President Carter ordered 60,000 for his first holiday in the White House in 1977 but by 1979 when 105,000 were ordered, the President actually hired a committee to figure out what happened to create such a long list of addresses in such a short period of time. It had to be solved.