• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 13, 2024

From Yule log to eggnog, Jill Biden takes a Christmas TV tour of the White House Sunday on HGTV -- the last one she is likely to ever lead as the Bidens prepare to move out January 20.

It is a Christmastime tradition going back decades in which the reigning First Lady, trailed by a camera crew, strolls through the Executive Mansion, where the halls are decked with boughs of holly and much, much more.

Two turtle doves? Not in the People’s House! This year’s White House Christmas fantasy features 2,200 doves, more than 165,075 holiday lights, 83 Christmas trees, 28,125 ornaments and 9,810 feet of ribbon.

All Americans with a costly cable TV package that includes HGTV are invited to join holly-jolly Jill as she points out the many highlights of this electrifying 165,075-Christmas light display.

HGTV personalities Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt, the stars of “100 Day Dream Home,” tag along with eyes wide as they take in the spectacle of the Blue Room’s 18.5-foot-tall official White House Christmas tree, and the 2024 Gingerbread White House created from 25 sheets of gingerbread dough, 50 pounds of royal icing and 45 pounds of chocolate.

“Royal icing”? Indeed, the White House is a veritable Versailles this Christmas season with “a cascade of peace doves suspended overhead in the Cross Hall,” HGTV says.

Are they dead or alive? HGTV’s press release doesn’t say, but it is probably the former. Can you imagine the mess a cascade of live doves would make in the White House’s august Cross Hall with its gilded chairs and Empire pier tables?

This year’s White House Christmas theme is “A Season of Peace and Light.” In the East Colonnade, a Gold Star Tree “honors fallen service members” along with “a stunning collection of bells,” HGTV says.

More than 300 volunteers from around the country descended upon the White House to install the finery without pay.

Among the questions that go unanswered: If the doves are dead, how did they meet their demise? Also, what kind of power are we talking about to illuminate those 165,075 Christmas lights?

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly to all tax-paying Americans, how much is all this gonna cost when all is said and done?

On the other hand, only a Scrooge would expect an answer to these questions in the merry season of Christmas. 

So, enjoy this national Christmas extravaganza without regard to the cost or the treatment of its doves. From the White House to your house: Merry Christmas, America!

“White House Christmas 2024” airs Sunday, December 15, at 6 p.m. Eastern.