Those Evergreen Echoes

By Hugh Sidey

In his studio at Chadds Ford, Pa., with a model of the White House before him, Jamie Wyeth invoked the gift of fancy that runs in his veins, and with his brush brought snow to canvas. Meteorological records were shattered. The giant flakes covered the fountain on the South Lawn and blotted out the driveways. Cars disappeared. Falling snow hushed the city and drew a purple night around it. Wyeth stilled the melancholy world with his lovely strokes and brought the stars out one by one on Christmas Eve. He lighted the window of the Reagans' bedroom with an artist's alchemy of oil and watercolor, a small golden rectangle of warmth and hope. It is a reminder that joy and thanks, for the moment, can overwhelm chaos and brutality, and the simple human ritual of a midnight prayer or a final package wrapping can replace those rumbles of nations marching.

Wyeth first sketched the White House last fall, as he sat cross-legged on the lawn. The finished painting became the Reagans' Christmas card this year. That token of good will to men is not a new phenomenon in the federal city, where trouble is the main business. Many Presidents have turned to Christmas festivities with a special fervor, to dispel for a few precious hours the gloom that usually presses in. Back in 1941, when war had come and news of defeat was the daily Washington fare, Franklin Roosevelt brought a guest to the South Portico on Christmas Eve. Winston Churchill looked out over thousands of troubled people who had gathered on the lawn with a special understanding. "Let the children have their night of fun and laughter," he said. "Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their hearts; let us share to the full in their unstinted pleasure, before we turn again to the stern tasks in the year that lies before us."

So it will be in the Reagan White House, where 19 members of the family and close friends will come for Christmas dinner. To accompany the turkey, the President will get his favorite sweet potatoes with marshmaUows and even some monkey bread, a thick, spongy concoction he relishes. The White House is laced with vivid red, green, gold and white decorations. There is a giant bunch of mistletoe in the foyer, a 19 1/2-ft. Douglas fir from Spartansburg, Pa., and the gingerbread house in the State Dining Room has a jelly bean path to the door.

The halls of the White House echo with music almost every day and night, as visiting choirs take turns singing for the huge crowds that walk in awed silence through the candlelit state rooms. Musty portraits of Presidents from Christmases past have been garlanded with evergreens: even Chester Arthur with his mutton chops got an injection of cheer.

Ghosts are about, like that of the indomitable Abigail Adams, who was so determined to have a Christmas in the unfinished White House in 1800 that 20 cords of wood were burned in all the fireplaces to heat the bleak building. Jefferson, one legend has it, was so moved by the Christmas gaiety five years later that he got out his violin and played a few tunes.

The grim news from Poland may intrude into the intimate moments of White House life this week. But Christmas, with its echoing cry for brotherhood, its pleas for peace on earth, is a necessary annual nourishment for the presidency, just as important in some ways as the tax receipts. The stage is magnificently set. Word has it that Ronald Reagan will add to White House cheer by singing a carol or two, and Nancy has told her household that there will be snow. The flakes that Jamie Wyeth created in October have been waiting around for the cue.

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