12 Days of Presidents
In October, I participated in a daily drawing challenge (with presidential trivia crammed in) and had a blast. December is a busy month, so I’m not going to commit to every day … but 12 days is nothing, right? Please join me in celebrating all the creative ways I am able to procrastinate on what I should be doing.
FUN FACT: the 12 Days of Christmas starts December 25, is a thing I just learned. This is the 12 days of Presidents though, so I can start it whenever I want. To the best of my knowledge, none of these guys ever wore an ugly Christmas sweater.
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On the twelfth day of presidents my sketchbooks served up to me
12 merry tidbits
Christmas Island got its name because it was first sighted on Christmas Day in 1643.
The English didn't actually step foot on the island until more than 40 years later.
That white stuff falling in my doodle? It's bird poop. That bird poop (guano) was first mined in the 1800s. I didn't dig into this too much, but it's called phosphate mining, not bird poop mining.
Eleanor Roosevelt visited Christmas Island during World War II.
Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776.
Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 was signed on Christmas Eve.
Stressing about your long holiday to-do list? I know just who to blame – Washington Irving.
Named after George Washington; he was born around the time the Revolutionary War ended.
Lived with Martin Van Buren when they were both in London.
Owned Lindenwald before Martin Van Buren.
Christmas wasn't widely celebrated back in the day. It was considered a pagan holiday. Irving and Charles Dickens both wrote stories that kind of turned Christmas into the bigger deal it is today. I'm simplifying for space and time, of course. But basically, Irving just made up a bunch of "traditions" in a story, gussied them up until they seemed like they were long-standing traditions, bada-bing-bada-boom… you have a long holiday to-do list and are not sure how everything will get done on time.
While I am kind of annoyed with him, he's also freaking fascinating.
Benjamin Harrison had the first decorated Christmas tree in the White House.
It was enjoyed by his wife, children, grandchildren, and niece/future wife.
Second-term Grover Cleveland probably had the first tree with electric lights.
It's a fun story, but Teddy Roosevelt didn't ban Christmas trees from the White House.
It was just still a very new tradition and not one that had fully taken off yet.
The first National Tree lighting ceremony was with Calvin Coolidge.
Prior to his presidency, Herbert Hoover celebrated Christmas all over the world, including Australia where kangaroos pull Santa's sleigh.
(I conducted exhaustive :30 research and I don't think there are kangaroos on Christmas Island.)Truman received a menorah from the Israeli prime minister.
Jimmy Carter was the first to light the large National Menorah.
I'll close with a quote from Calvin Coolidge: “Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”
I cheated so hard with today, repurposing a lot of my jolly content from two years ago. It's come to my attention that not everyone sees and/or memorizes everything I throw out there, so maybe this isn't a big deal. If you feel slighted by this blatant recycling, please let me know.
11 hirsute faces
A bunch of presidents sported facial hair, the last of which was more than a century ago:
John Quincy Adams
Martin Van Buren
Abraham Lincoln
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland again, to mess up my list so there are 12 but really it's only 11 different guys
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Check out the Presidential Facial Hair Power Ranking for more.
Note: One list I came across also included Zachary Taylor and Harry S Truman. I left Taylor out because I didn't think his sideburns were quite long enough to qualify. I left Harry out because he wasn't elected with a beard, I haven't come across a real photo of him with it, and he allegedly nicknamed the damned thing Jeff Davis.
Did you notice any of the Easter eggs? When John Quincy Adams returned from his post in Russia, his Russian winter attire deemed him “more alien than American.” I’m not sure if this is the hat/coat he wore, but you get my drift. The stars on his sweater are a nod to his interest in astronomy. James Garfield’s sweater features triangles, inspired by his Pythagorean theorem proof. Yes, I know these are not the right type of triangles but I wanted them to also look like trees, thank you very much. Theodore Roosevelt loved hunting and also had an Olympic Mountain elk named after him – Cervus Roosevelti. William Howard Taft, much to Roosevelt’s frustration, golfed all the damned time.
10 dollar reward
Andrew Johnson's dad died after rescuing three men whose boat overturned, leaving the family with no money. His mom sold both boys into apprenticeships. 10-year-old Andrew was to be tied to the apprenticeship until he turned 21. At 15, they ran away. A $10 reward was offered for his return. (The ad broke "Andrew" onto two lines with no hyphen, which I just find kind of endearing… considering my poor space planning. I did the same in my doodle, but intentionally this time. Johnson was described as having a "very fleshy freckled face.”)
9 first children
William Henry Harrison's wife Anna gave birth to the most children of a president (first kids?), with nine children living to maturity. Perhaps they grew bored of naming their children:
One was named Benjamin because see Day 8. (It's worth reiterating that this Ben isn't the father of President Ben.)
One was William Henry Harrison, Jr.
Two were John. Of the Johns, one was the father of a future president. And the other embezzled $12,000 and was booted from his position by Andrew Jackson, so really hitting some highs and lows with the Johns Harrison.
It's worth nothing that John Tyler had more children. He spread them out over two wives, though, with both maxing out at 7 kids. Pound for pound, the Tylers did create the most Confederate kids though so I guess that's a thing that happened.
8 Bens a-benning
President Benjamin Harrison was Benjamin Harrison VIII. For the Harrisons, it was all about the Benjamins – but the name wasn't necessarily passed from father to son.
The Original Benjamin Harrison arrived in Jamestown in 1633
Benjamin II came next… then Ben III. The early Bens (not sure which or when) built up the family plantation.
Ben IV and his two daughters were killed when he was struck by lightning trying to close a window, thereby making Ben V head of the house.
Ben V, a.k.a. The Signer was impressive:
two-time governor of Virginia
signed the Declaration of Independence
6' 4" and overweight, nicknamed "Jack Falstaff" by sometime-friend John Adams
father of President William Henry Harrison
Joked with the skinny Elbridge Gerry that he'd have the advantage if they were caught and hanged: "When we are all hung for what we are doing now" Elbridge would "dance in the air an hour" before he died.
Ben VI… then there's Ben VII, who you might think sired Ben VIII. Nope. President Benjamin Harrison was grandson to President William Henry Harrison and son of John Scott Harrison (the only guy to be both son and father of presidents). Don't even get me started on John Scott Harrison's grizzly post-death story….
7 swans a-swimming
John Adams said "In Virginia, all geese are swans." Sick burn. I think. In any case, on the 7th day of Christmas my true love brought to me "seven swans a-swimming." How cool would it have been if there were seven swans Virginians who became president?! Alas, the universe was not with me. Who among you knew that Woodrow Wilson was from Virginia anyhow? I'm rolling with it 'cause this is my house and I make the rules. If you’re here for math, my friend, you are in the wrong place. The 7 (+one bonus Virginian) are:
🦢 George Washington
🦢 Thomas Jefferson
🦢 James Madison
🦢 James Monroe
🦢 William Henry Harrison
🦢 John Tyler
🦢 Zachary Taylor
🦢 Woodrow Wilson
6 foot tall Greek-god bod
A gossip column oozed "Dutch has nothing to be ashamed of in any physical fashion. He is over six feet tall with the proverbial Greek-God physique: broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, and a face that would make Venus look twice…watch him; he’s streamlined.” Since Ronald Reagan was a life guard (saving 78 people from drowning during his life time, with the latest saved at a July 4th staff garden party he and Nancy hosted), Poseidon was my inspiration. Ronnie's holding a tiny stick instead of a massive trident because, as a Conservative Digest publisher accused, he was "Teddy Roosevelt in reverse – speaking loudly and carrying a very small stick." Ouch.
PS I realized the red water droplets on the ugly Christmas cloth draped over his shoulder look more like blood, which allows me to cram in one more fact: when he was shot, he lost more than half his blood. Still had enough to joke that he hoped the surgeons were Republicans.
5 needless acres
Grover Cleveland was asked if ex-presidents should be taken "out to a five-acre lot" and shot. He replied "five acres seems needlessly large."
4 presidential terms
Grover Cleveland opposed presidents serving three terms. His widow Frances didn't vote for FDR in 1940 because, as she told their kids, "your father never approved of a third term." She voted for FDR in 1944 though: "your father never said anything about a fourth term."
3 rebuffed invitations
A couple of days before he kicked the bucket, James Buchanan extended funeral invitations to Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, and then-president Andrew Johnson. None went. Also none wore festive scarves. Buchanan died in June.
2 NFL offers
Both the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions* tried to recruit Gerald Ford, but he wanted to go to law school. To pay for it, he got a job coaching football at Yale. During the off-season, he coached boxing (even though he’d never boxed before).
*Detroit offered to pay him $200 per game!
A POTUS with a PhD
President Woodrow Wilson, who didn’t learn his letters until age 9 and couldn’t read well until he was 12, is the president is the only president with a PhD. (First Lady Dr. Jill Biden is the only FLOTUS with a doctorate; she earned an Ed.D.)
