Home for the Holiday

By FAYE FIORE

Dec. 5, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

Passing through the doors to the foyer of the White House mansion is like walking into a fairy tale where 61,000 white lights twinkle amid 49 towering pines, 264 fat bows, 648 feet of roped garland, 800 pounds of fake snow and a pianist playing “Greensleeves.”

But for the first time in decades, the people will not be permitted to tour the People’s House this Christmas. It’s closed for security reasons as Washington celebrates the joyous season under the pall of war and the nagging reminders of terrorism.

“I am sorry about that,” first lady Laura Bush lamented as she led a gaggle of reporters through a pageant of white and gold this week. “I think our responsibility--the president’s and mine as the current residents--is to err on the side of safety and caution for everyone who goes to the White House.”

She enlisted the media’s help to bring the holiday splendor to the American people. The camera-slung horde enthusiastically complied, pushing and shoving its way from the East Room to the Dining Room, straining to hear the red-suited Mrs. Bush describe her favorite ornaments, boom mikes poking at the crystal chandeliers.

“Five people only!” an aide barked as the clot of reporters shuffled down the grand corridor toward the Blue Room, where the official White House tree towered, an 18-foot Concolor fir from the central Pennsylvania mountains, bedecked with miniature replicas of historic houses from every state.

Mrs. Bush selected the “Home for the Holidays” theme back in July, not knowing how poignant the sentiment would be come December, with so many lost or displaced by catastrophe and war.

These are strange times for Washington, which, like New York, has struggled to heed the president’s call for normality amid persistent reminders that things are anything but. If Christmas here feels off-kilter, so does much of everyday life.

Shortly after the attacks, mailboxes were pulled from the streets of the district and trash cans removed from the subway for fear of bombs. The Pentagon still has a big black hole in its side, a grim reminder for holiday shoppers who travel to a popular mall nearby. Humvees with machine guns point toward the highway.

The National Guard stands watch over a Capitol studded with wreaths. Barricades zigzag chaotically around the monuments, and Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House is so quiet for lack of tourists that one longtime resident was tempted to lie down in the middle of it.

But few routines have been as disrupted as those surrounding the mail. The White House and Congress stopped receiving deliveries when an anthrax-laced letter turned up in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle on Oct. 15.

Holiday cards are little more than an afterthought as a backlog of more than 500 bags of letters, trucked to Ohio and sanitized, begins to arrive on Capitol Hill, tagged with little notes explaining the delay. Another 65 bags with traces of anthrax will probably be burned.

The Senate office building where the Daschle letter was opened has been fumigated and shuttered until at least the first of the year, displacing hundreds of members and their aides. Among them is Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), scattered with her staff in the borrowed conference rooms of a senator from Texas and the Washington offices of Gov. Gray Davis. Forty people who once had their own computers now share 12; the holiday decorations are still in boxes.

“It’s like being on a road trip with your family for a month and a half and the question most often asked is when will it end?” said Feinstein press secretary Jim Hock. “People are toning down the holiday parties this year. Being that we’re at war, and so many lives were lost, I guess we’re remembering what Christmas is all about.”

And just as some aspects of life began to feel almost normal this week--with no new cases of anthrax and Congress happily bickering over the budget--the Bush administration issued another vague but chilling warning of more terrorist threats during the holy month of Ramadan.

So Christmastime comes with an air of reserve, a feeling that the city is celebrating the season while looking over one shoulder.

Not that scandal and tragedy haven’t overshadowed Washington Christmases past. The White House only began to revel with grandeur when the Hoovers moved in. (In George Washington’s day, politicians ate a big feast and went back to work.)

The holidays were subdued after the assassinations of Presidents McKinley and Kennedy, the Iran-Contra matter strained Christmas for the Reagans, and the government was shut down by a gridlocked Congress in December six years ago.

But the atmosphere has not felt this ominous since World War II, when the White House closed to the public from the bombing of Pearl Harbor to V-E Day, and the holidays were a time of labored celebration, said Virginia-based historian William Seale.

“This is all about security because believe me, they don’t like to close it. The public has always deeply appreciated being able to go the White House,” Seale said, noting that Thomas Jefferson opened the mansion to the world 200 years ago last spring and only war and repair have closed it for any length of time since.

But not even war can change some Washington rituals. While the common man will have no access this season, the elite and well-connected will.

The first of 22 holiday parties hosted by the Bushes--sometimes at the rate of two a day--began Sunday with a Kennedy Center soiree for CEOs and glitterati, followed by a black-tie congressional ball at the White House on Monday.

Schmoozing has been a staple of business in Washington since Dolly Madison perfected the art, mixing adversaries at social occasions where they had to mingle or be called rude.

This season, the Bushes’ holiday guests will feast on smoked salmon, truffles and eggnog in the State Dining Room, set out on a table with a 130-pound gingerbread replica of the mansion as it looked in 1800 when John Adams became its first resident. On the confectionary lawn, a candy version of the Bushes’ terrier sits beside a chocolate signpost reading “Beware of Barney.”

They will mingle in the parlors decorated with holiday models of presidential homes, marvel at the creche on display in the East Room and listen to any number of children’s choirs from across the nation perform.

Didn’t make the list? You can catch the presidential trimmings on a 10-minute video available at the White House visitor’s center, on various morning news shows or in an upcoming Barbara Walters special. After all, there’s no place like home for the holidays.

LAURA BUSH’S HOT CHOCOLATE RECIPE

*6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

6 tablespoons sugar

pinch of salt

2 1/2 cups milk

2 1/2 cups light cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of cinnamon powder (optional)

whipped cream

orange zest

Mix cocoa, sugar and salt.

Add milk. Heat to dissolve.