Trivia Advent Calendar

[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