Trivia Advent Calendar

[STS Lincolnite]

I admit to having to look this one up. From what I was able to find, it seems that Grover Cleveland was the first President to have electric lights on the White House Christmas tree in 1895.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Good job, Scott, that is correct!
   
I first tried to no avail to find a depiction of the first Xmas tree Franklin Pierce set up in the White House in 1856. I just found this contemporary illustration by Winslow Homer, titled "The Christmas-Tree", which appeared in Harper's Weekly on Dec. 25, 1858:
   
...and I found this nice site about White House traditions:
http://cooldcre.com/post/3550127/holiday...hite-house

Somewhere in the beginning I mentioned our local annual gingerbread house contest - now I learned that there has also been established a "White House gingerbread house tradition" in 1969. The first gingerbread White House was a simple A-frame made with 16 pounds of gingerbread and six pounds of icing:
   
Since then, each administration has created a gingerbread house at the White House, recent ones were made of white chocolate.
The 2012 gingerbread house was (allegedly) made of bread:
   
Sorry, whether made of (ginger???) bread or not, other than the 1969 specimen, this is not a gingerbread house to me, it lacks the "Knusperhäuschen"-factor...

In 1961 First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was the first to add a theme for the tree: The Nutcracker Suite. Forgive me, I just can't let you off without the original - although the following is from a "Nutcracker" production by one of the greatest choreographers of our days, the late Maurice Bejart, the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" remained Marius Petipa's orignal 1892 choreography:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuk5Sknh1rY

[L Verge]

I'm very sorry that Franklin Pierce has been pushed aside in the history of being the first President to bring a Christmas tree into the White House.

At Surratt House, we give out a booklet during the holidays on the history of our various customs. When I wrote the first booklet nearly forty years ago, I loved the story of Andrew Jackson's party for his children, grandchildren, and children of various White House staff members. They actually staged a snowball fight within the mansion - with the weapons carefully constructed with balls of cotton. During the Civil War, there are Varina Davis's warm recollections of the holiday at the Confederate White House and the special party that they held for the orphans.

I found these statistics for what it took to put together the 2014 "gingerbread" replica of the White House: Located in the State Dining Room, this year’s gingerbread house – complete with a skating rink and marzipan reindeer -- contains 250 pounds of pastillage, 40 pounds of marzipan, 25 pounds of gum paste, 80 pounds of gingerbread dough, 25 pounds of sugar work, and an immeasurable amount of holiday delight. You can check it out here: wh.gov/holidays. One year, the press covered the White House decorations and showed how such a huge and fragile work was transported from the kitchens to the State Dining Room. It was quite a feat. If I had been the pastry chef, my heart would have been in my throat until it was safely in place.

Finally, I should mention that one part of the Russian Ballet is in D.C. now performing the Nutcracker.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Laurie! Taking White House Xmas trivia to the tree top: The lady who construed the WH gingerbread house this year, then-White House assistant pastry chef Susie Morrison, has just been named the new executive pastry chef. Susan E. Morrison is the first woman to hold the job.
   
Reminds me of what I imagine might have looked like the sugar models of the U.S. Capitol, Fort Sumter and Admiral David Farragut on the mast of his ship, the USS Hartford, which had been made for the menu at A. Lincoln's second inauguration ball, obviously the "&c." here:
   

[RJNorton]

(12-14-2014 02:58 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  the menu at A. Lincoln's second inauguration ball here:

Please excuse as I may have posted this once before. That second inaugural ball was interesting. Carl Sandburg described it this way - "Three hundred at a time could be accommodated at the feast table, but there were 5,000 guests at the supper. This created disorder - a "crush." Many were like one gentleman "with a large plate of food, requiring both hands to hold it, no place to sit down, and no way to eat it."

[L Verge]

(12-14-2014 04:23 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(12-14-2014 02:58 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  the menu at A. Lincoln's second inauguration ball here:

Please excuse as I may have posted this once before. That second inaugural ball was interesting. Carl Sandburg described it this way - "Three hundred at a time could be accommodated at the feast table, but there were 5,000 guests at the supper. This created disorder - a "crush." Many were like one gentleman "with a large plate of food, requiring both hands to hold it, no place to sit down, and no way to eat it."

Wonder what the final bill was for those groceries? At the end of a cruel war where Lincoln had chided Mary about her flub-dubs taking blankets away from soldiers, it seems a tad hypocritical to lay out a spread like that. I hope they all got indigestion!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Partly the costs might have been covered by the ticket fees. A $10 ticket (= 150$ nowadays) admitted three people to the ball. If 5000 people had purchased ~ 1666 tickets, roughly 250,000$ in nowadays currency terms would have been taken in. Plus the drinks were not for free:
   

[Eva Elisabeth]

What do you guess is #15?
   

[RJNorton]

Could that be the model for a device Abraham Lincoln patented to lift boats over shoals?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Brilliant, Roger! That is correct:
   

[RJNorton]

Thank you, Eva. After guessing the Great Hinckley Fire for the Atlanta Depot Gone With The Wind fire I really needed to get one right for a change.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Roger, the Great Hinckley Fire was a brilliant, OUTSTANDING guess!!!!! Whithout the carriage which I only posted after your guess, it could have been any fire, couldn't it?!!! I found this painting of the Great Hinckley Fire:
   
Forgot some info on the patent:
http://www.pddoc.com/skedaddle/articles/...patent.htm
And here's the patent (Rob Wick once provided this link):
http://www.google.com/patents?id=ajRFAAA...&q&f=false

#16 looks a bit like #15, but what is this now?
   

[Angela]

Oh, I think I remember this - is this one of the little bookshelves in the Lincoln home? They had several, very delicate looking ones there.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Excellent, Angela - you win in any case!!! It is what you describe. Now can someone add the very name of this Victorian piece of furniture?

[Gene C]

On this forum we have referred to it as a What Not