54 Christmas trees a part of the White House's "Joy to All" holiday theme

First lady Michelle Obama debuted the White House Christmas decorations, which this year honor members of the military. The "Joy to All" holiday theme also includes 54 Christmas trees and an elaborate, 300-pound gingerbread house resembling the White House. CNN shared her talk:

TRANSCRIPT (video follows):

This year's theme is Joy to All.

It celebrates the many joys of the holiday seasons, the joy of giving and service to others, the joy of sharing our blessings with one another and of course, the joy of welcoming our friends and families as guests into our homes over these next several weeks.

We've also continued the tradition of decorating trees throughout the House. We have 54 trees in the White House. 54! That's a lot of trees.

We have found some wonderful ways to pay tribute to your service and sacrifice as an important part of our holiday decorating efforts here at the White House.  And it starts, as you all have seen, the minute visitors walk through the White House for their tours, the first thing they see, the very first tree they see, honors our men and women in uniform for the extraordinary sacrifice they and their families have made. And thanks to several of you here today, I know that this tree is now decorated with special gold star ornaments bearing the names of some of America's greatest heroes, those who gave their lives for our country.

We are also honoring our military families with some very special decorations on the official White House Christmas tree that's in the Blue Room. That's the biggest tree in the house. It's huge, stands close to 19 feet tall, it is one of my favorite trees. This very special "Joining Forces" tree is covered with hand-decorated ornaments made by military children living in U.S. bases around the world.

And of course, keeping with past holiday traditions, we have our annual White House Gingerbread House. Yeah, have you guys seen that yet? A White House holiday staple since the 1960s, this year's house weighs nearly 300 pounds so it's a pretty big house, and its walls are made to resemble granite, so he did some kind of technique to make it look like real granite. And it even includes chandeliers that light up. It glows.

{video link}

D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

More Posts - Website - Twitter