Green Christmas

Upstairs and downstairs and into the First Lady's chamber went two workmen last week, lugging shiny green holly wreaths, one for each window of the White House. Downstairs all was Christmas rush. Bookkeeper Henry Nesbitt listed stacks of early gifts; Housekeeper Mrs. Nesbitt thumbed over the State linen, bargained with tradesmen, checked the storeroom's loaded shelves of cans and bottled goods. The cook pirouetted with dignity around the 24-foot electric stove, carefully sniffed the game rack, where hung pheasants, quail, ducks, grouse, and woodcocks waiting till they were high enough for a President's taste.

In the mailroom clerks stiffened their sinews to grapple with the hundreds of thousands of cards and gifts--from fruitcake and ship models to luggage and buck deer--that stack up every year, the week before Christmas. Secret Service men could infinitesimally relax: Christmastime is a slow season for cranks & crackpots.

By plane and train from all over the U. S. gathered the Roosevelt clan, some two dozen strong--with newest grandson, eight-month-old John Roosevelt Boettiger, coming East to take his first look at his famous grandfather. Ready as always was Grandmother Eleanor, her activities for the holiday week scheduled to the minute--six public Christmas tree ceremonies, three religious services, three celebrations in New York City, three separate White House children's parties.

Ready were the traditional red stockings that every Roosevelt, child and grownup, hangs over the fireplace in the President's second-floor bedroom. On Christmas Eve, after the children have kissed "Grandpa" good night, the elder Roosevelts stuff the stockings. Into each toe goes a toothbrush, a nailfile, a gaily wrapped bar of soap--vestiges of a custom that Mrs. Roosevelt began, as a sugar-coated reminder of cleanliness, when her six-footer sons were little tads.

On the vast, waxy-gleaming floor of the East Room, where Mrs. John Adams once hung the White House wash, stood an enormous Christmas tree. This was the public tree, trimmed in white snow and white lights. Upstairs in the second-floor corridor stood the family tree, brilliant with colored balls, candles only on its fire-proofed upper branches, out of children's reach. Below it will mass breast-high stacks of family gifts.

The White House Christmas settles into its stride on Christmas Eve. In the afternoon the President will make a brief national broadcast, and light the National Community Christmas tree. After dinner Franklin Roosevelt, a longtime lover of Tiny Tim, reads aloud to his family Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.

As soon after dawn as is seemly, the pajama-clad small fry whoop into "Grandpa's" bedroom, bounce on his bed, shout "Merry Christmas," and dive for the bulging red stockings hanging from the mantelpiece. After breakfast (smoked sausages and scrambled eggs) the President and the immediate family motor around old Lafayette Square to the grey granite St. Thomas Episcopal Church.

After church and the mammoth noonday Christmas dinner--when "Grandpa" carves a 40-pound turkey--the fun really begins. Seated by the tree, and giving advice on horn-blowing technique to the jumping urchins, the President and the family attack the gift piles with cries of genuine or simulated delight, get lost in the billows of wrapping paper, like many another American family.

This year Mrs. Roosevelt may have crossed her fingers. Thus far there has been no sign of chickenpox or tonsillitis (Sister & Buzzie Dall, 1932), sinus (Franklin Jr. 1936) or other ill hap. On hand will be still-ailing Harry Hopkins, Secretary of Commerce, and his bright-eyed, motherless daughter, Diana, 7. And last to open her stocking--by custom--will be the President's 85-year-old mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, still the belle of the Hudson Valley.

Last week the President:

P: Told the press he will ask Congress to extend beyond next June the State Department's powers to conclude reciprocal trade agreements, thus coming to the aid of beleaguered Secretary Cordell Hull. >Mourned the death of President Juan Arosemena of Panama (see p. 57). ^ Presented to Mrs. Richard Aldrich of

New York City a Congressional Medal for her work in Puerto Rico as an Army nurse 40 years ago during the Spanish-American War, recalled, "I tried to enlist, but was taken with an attack of mumps before I could do it."

P: Defended the right of WPA workers to join unions, but said flatly and definitely that no Government employe has the right to strike.

P: Challenged, in bristling manner, Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft's ability to balance the U. S. budget; offered Mr. Taft "a handsome prize" if he would show the President how it could be done.

P: Heard from U. S. Ambassador to Belgium Joseph E. Davies that a third term is necessary to save the U. S. from war involvement; pondered how to keep the politically influential Mr. Davies in the U. S.

P: Checked over his Christmas-tree business on his 1,077 Hyde Park acres; selected especially perfect pines for Christmas gifts; sent 500 to the market.

P:Tried out his new "throne," a handsomely carved, high-legged walnut chair specially designed to seat him at eye level with those who file by him at official handshaking functions. Terribly tiring are all White House receptions, but worst is the diplomatic reception, social high light of the Washington winter season. With the aid of the "Siege Perilous"--so dubbed by Washington wits--Franklin Roosevelt came paint-fresh through the exhausting ordeal.

To the disappointment of Washington society columnists, who came this time not to jot down details of furbelows and jewels, but to spy out diplomatic incidents, Nazi, British, French, Russian, Finnish envoys avoided each other with frigid finesse. Near-incidents: 1) Russian Ambassador Constantine Oumansky almost bumped into Finnish Minister Hjalmar Procope, but just in time handsome Mr. Procope turned aside toward the chocolate cookies. 2) Rumors spread that the fancy pants of Mehmet Munir Ertegun, Turkish Ambassador, split slightly as he bowed before the President. No one could confirm this rumor, as the Ambassador stood poker-faced with his back to the wall most of the evening.

P: Reappointed as chairman of the Red Cross Norman Hezekiah Davis. Mr. Roosevelt made clear his belief that Mr. Hoover's Finnish Relief drive confused and muddled the more orderly channels of the Red Cross. Rapped back Mr. Hoover: "It is a great pity that people will start out to poison the wells of human charity."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.