Saturday, we went for a tour of the White House and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the public parts of the White House in full Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, no pictures as cameras were not allowed inside (you had to pretty much leave everything in your car). Our gracious guide was a patient of Zandra's. She is one of the handful of permanent staff at the White House that serves regardless of the administration in office. So she told us of lots of interesting little stories.

A funny moment came right off the bat - we were having our identities checked at the entrance (you must submit your names and social security numbers in advance for screening). Turned out, the person checking our IDs and names had the same name as Andrew! We were thinking, gosh, wish Andrew could have borrowed his ID....

Lots of interesting history and sometimes humorous information behind what you see. Coming in, we saw a portrait of Hillary Clinton in the hallway. We were told that that location is always reserved for a portrait of the immediately preceeding First Lady. So when Obama is sworn in, the picture of Hillary will come down and up will go the portrait of Laura Bush. This tradition, though, did lead to the awkward occurrence of George W. having to take down the picture of his own mother and put up Hillary's portrait in its place. Wow!

There's also a portrait of George Washington that she told us Dolly Madison saved when the British burned the White House. Dolly Madison was just finishing a chocolate cake when the British arrived (so much for advanced intelligence gathering in those days), so she ordered the staff to break the frame and she rolled up the portrait and took it with her. There's often a portrait of Dolly Madison hanging around nearby so "she can keep an eye on the portrait".

We were told about the Christmas trees inside and the Nativity scenes, and learned of the "private" dining room that is a much more intimate setting with "only" about 25-30 seats. Hmmmph!

We also heard an interesting story involving the Presidential Motorcade. For security reasons, President Bush had to take a motorcade from the White House across the lawn to light the National Christmas Tree. We were told there was too much empty space around to make a walk to the tree safe. The Presidential Motorcade has 27 cars (by the way, we found you can tell how important someone is by the number of vehicles in their motorocade - it's all set by protocol...). It's so long that to the Tree Lighting Ceremony, half the motorcade was still in the White House driveway. A cat chasing its tail moment....

No Oval Office tour. No Lincoln Bedroom tour (those are all off limits). That said, still a great tour with insider insight into the day-to-day operations of the White House!

Tags: Humor