The White House Becomes a Home

By Hugh Sidey

THE PRESIDENCY

At the end of the year around the White House, detente has a second meaning: harmony between Pat Nixon and the kitchen. Last week relations were superb. Assistant Chef Hans Raffert fashioned a two-foot-high house out of 16 1/2 pounds of gingerbread, mortared it together with six pounds of icing, shingled it with five pounds of cookies, and decorated it with gumdrops, a pound of hard candy and a dozen peppermint canes. An embassy child stood spellbound before this creation, reached out and broke off a piece of the front and popped it in his mouth.

When snow settles on the South Lawn, foreign policy is nothing so much as our relationship with the North Pole.

Last week S. Claus was loose in the corridors where diplomats and admirals usually stride on their awesome missions. Mr. Claus, otherwise known as Sandy Fox, head of the graphics and protocol office in the East Wing, has a good jolly ho, ho, ho. He carried a string of sleigh bells over his shoulder as he jingled on his prestigious errand from the East Room to the North Portico. Sandy has been the White House Santa since the Kennedy days; he has pieced together a flawless costume and has grown a real white mustache that cannot be pulled off. His tummy is the creation of his daughter Debbie, who glued together several pieces of foam rubber and sewed it all up in red cotton for the benefit of the republic.

About a dozen of the young ladies who really make the White House run decided that a snowman was needed to brighten the South Lawn. During their lunch hour they went outdoors and formed an assembly line. The snow would not pack, so they got buckets of water, sloshed it around, and produced a handsome fellow at least six feet tall.

At first he faced down the lawn toward the Washington Monument. The girls wanted the children who were coming for the party to see a smile, so they made another face on the back of the snowman. Julie Eisenhower got her father to unbend a bit and come out with her mother to pose for pictures.

It is an annual marvel that the White House melts so beautifully into human form at this time of year. The gears of state slow, the political combatants quiet down--ever so slightly. There is much to savor. Billy Graham preached at a Sunday morning service in the East Room ("In the midst of all this chaos and crisis comes the message of Christmas, with all of its hope, good will and cheer"), and the soaring strains of Joy to the World and Mary Had a Baby rang out from the Army chorus. The White House staff, from lawyers to clerks, came together in small warm groups to nibble Christmas cookies and sip some eggnog. Nixon showed up briefly.

This week, on Thursday and Friday nights, the staff will dim the electric lights in the public rooms of the mansion. In their place, dozens of candles will be lit. Oak fires will be kindled in the eight fireplaces, and the President and his family will open the doors and invite the public in. In the soft light one can stand for a moment and ponder where we have been and wonder where we are going.

The company is good. In the Green Room is a painting of Ben Franklin, looking wise and mellow and a little as if he had been into the plum pudding too much. In the Grand Staircase is Franklin Roosevelt, who used to read Dickens' A Christmas Carol to his family, modulating his voice to fit each of the characters. There is Andrew Jackson in the Blue Room, the edges of his angular face softened in the candlelight.

All the other Presidents are there too, the nation's history in human terms. The procession goes on, and that is part of the message of this Christmas and the New Year.

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