Jolly POTUS trivia
ISSUE NO. 5 // HOLIDAY EDITION
Happy Holidays!
You may have received the companion piece to this email — a limited-edition printed issue of The POTUS Notice. If you didn’t, that’s ok. The electronic version of the print version of my electronic newsletter is (basically) below. I guarantee you won’t get a papercut reading it!
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BENJAMIN HARRISON
was the first to have a Christmas tree in the White House. (Yeah, yeah, I know… it wasn’t called The White House until Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency.)
I drew Harrison with a Santa hat, but he looks so much like Santa that it just seems like I drew Santa. Eh… you win some, you lose some. I turned him into a rubberstamp, if you want your very own Benjamin Harrisanta.
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As 2021 draws to a close, I want to thank you for following my project, joining me on this weird little presidential journey, and laughing at my dumb jokes. At least some of them, I hope.
Here’s to a happy and healthy 2022, filled with kinda useless trivia. Cheers!
Presidential Doodler
ULYSSES S. GRANT
Before he was president, a giant sequoia was named in Grant’s honor – The General Grant Tree.
Years later, Coolidge proclaimed it “the nation’s Christmas tree.”
Grant’s campaign slogan was “let us have peace.”
President when Christmas became a legal holiday in 1870.
(Long story short: among the colonists, Christmas was considered a pagan holiday full of debauchery. It was actually banned in Boston and came with a fine! Washington Irving and Charles Dickens helped change the perception of the holiday; slowly Christmas was reimagined and rebranded.)
CALVIN COOLIDGE
Silent Cal had red hair. I’m not sure why, but it blew my mind when I learned that. (It probably wasn’t Ronald McDonald red, like in my doodle. But I’m not going to let facts that ruin my color scheme.)
Electricity was used to light the White House Christmas tree for the first time when Coolidge was in office and the tree-lighting tradition began with him. (I doubt the lights blinked, like in my crude animation.)
“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.”
- Calvin Coolidge
HERBERT HOOVER
Hoover spent Christmases all over the globe, including in Australia (where ferns are part of Christmas decor and kangaroos pull Santa’s sleigh).
His first Christmas with his wife Lou was in China.
(I ♥ Lou. I will dedicate a future issue of my newsletter to her. And also try to restore Hoover’s good name a bit.)First POTUS to broadcast a Christmas message.
Christmas Eve 1929, the West Wing caught fire during a dinner party.
During the Depression, the Hoovers scaled back on Christmas festivities and increased charitable donations.
RANDOM (MOSTLY) HOLIDAY POTUS TRIVIA
Van Buren used to be roomies with Washington Irving (who helped reinvent Christmas). They were friends. Van Buren eventually moved to Lindenwald, the house where Irving used to live.
In honor of The Little Magician’s birthday, I’m tossing in some BONUS facts — completely free of charge!
Pierce was the first with a Christmas tree inside the yet-to-be-named White House.
FDR was the first to send out lots of Christmas cards.
(Yay, Christmas mail!)Truman received menorah for his birthday from Prime Minister of Israel. His birthday was in May.
Jackie Kennedy started the tradition of selecting a theme for the White House Christmas trees.
Carter was the first to light a menorah in the White House.
President Clinton was the first to recognize Kwanzaa with a presidential greeting.
Teddy Roosevelt banned Christmas trees in the White House.
… is what I heard. Not because he was a scrooge. I thought it was because of conservation. But then when I researched the details, I found a helpful (but disappointing) Mental Floss article that squashed that idea.
It’s possible with six kids and all of the chaos that accompanied them, there wasn’t enough room for a tree. Or maybe it just wasn’t part of their family’s Christmas tradition. His son Archie snuck a Christmas tree.
Sounds like everything was kinda blown out of proportion a bit. Personally, it was more fun to believe he’d banned Christmas trees. This is a bit of a bummer. Sorry about that.
