Displays Bring Yule Spirit to Reagan Library

Although we haven’t even stuffed the Thanksgiving turkey yet, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is already decking the halls--and walls--for Christmas.

If you’re a sucker for a glitzy Christmas tree, you can ogle 30 of them when the museum opens its “Christmas Around the World” display Saturday. Although the trees are artificial, they are laden with traditional holiday doodads and gizmos from all manner of distant lands, real and imagined--including Africa, Egypt, Lithuania, Switzerland, Disneyland and the land of Oz.

Along with a slew of holiday happenings at the hilltop retreat near Simi Valley, the museum also has a new exhibit that peeks into the Christmas traditions of various first families through the years. “Season’s Greetings from the White House” is a display of mostly Christmas cards and gifts that presidents have sent out while in office--all from the unusual collection of historian Mary Evans Seeley, and her husband, Ron.

The Tampa, Fla., couple have amassed about 350 pieces of White House memorabilia with a Christmas link. Some are whimsical, like the brass candleholder the Herbert Hoover family used in its traditional Christmas Eve search for Santa Claus--a search led by the president himself.

Some glow with history, such as the letter opener crafted from a piece of wood that was once part of the White House roof.

The bulk of the exhibit, however, deals with Christmas cards sent out by the first families.

The Seeleys have a story behind every item in their exhibit, which has traveled to the White House on two occasions. Mary Evans Seeley compiled them in a book published last year, “Seasons Greetings from the White House,” (MasterMedia Limited, $39.95, available at the Reagan library).

Starting with Calvin Coolidge, who began the tradition of a national Christmas tree in 1923, the book follows history through the window of Christmas, all the way to the Clinton administration.

“It’s nonpartisan,” Mary Evans Seeley said of the book. It was a natural for the Seeleys who profess to “love Christmas and our country.”

The book has some behind-the-scenes tales, like the near-calamity in 1954 when Hallmark printed some cards for the Eisenhowers, including one with a white-embossed wreath decorated with red berries. Hallmark officials were horrified to learn on the morning the 400 wreath cards were to be shipped to the White House that the red from the berries smeared easily. So they quickly pulled together a crew of artists who applied a dot of clear nail polish to each berry on each card, and shipped the lot that afternoon.

BE THERE

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 40 Presidential Drive, near Simi Valley, is open daily from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tree display and first family exhibit continue through Jan. 4. General admission is $4; $2 for seniors; free for children 15 and under. For information, call (800) 410-8354.