Behind-the-Scenes of the White House Christmas Tree

Jessie Davis: Standing behind me here is the 2008 official White House Christmas tree. In order to become eligible, you must first win the National Christmas Tree Association Contest. We did enter our tree and we were chosen as the grand champion. I would have to say its getting up real close to winning the Super Bowl. Therefore, we get to present this tree to the Nations White House.

Our family and co-owner will travel to Washington and we will present this tree to Laura Bush, to our First Lady of the nation. Once this tree arrives at the White House, then the National Park Service supplies manual labor, in which they will move it on baler and then set it up in the Blue Room.

Laura Bush: Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to make this such a beautiful Red, White, and Blue Holiday. We have 29 trees from the East Wing all the way through the residence, to the West Wing. They are all from North Carolina this year. The big Blue Room Christmas tree is decorated with ornaments from congressional districts from all 50 states, where we asked all of our congressmen and senators to designate an artist. Our youngest artist is an eightyear-old girl from Virginia and our oldest artist is a 90-year-old man from New York. I think you will get to see every state represented and you can really see the beautiful landscape of every district, all the wild life. We even have a Jackalope from Texas.

Happy holidays. Have fun.