Exhibit a Stand-In for White House Holiday Tours

In a normal year, the White House hosts a cherished tradition of the holiday season: public tours of its glittering Christmas decorations, which this year feature 49 pines, plenty of fake snow and 15 models of former presidents’ homes.

On Sunday, however, First Lady Laura Bush unveiled what will stand as a substitute during these security-conscious times: a photo exhibit and video of the White House decorations, installed several blocks from the executive mansion.

Public tours of the White House were canceled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and officials do not know when they will resume. In previous years, the holiday decorations attracted about 100,000 visitors annually.

The first lady said that this year’s theme, “Home for the Holidays,” was selected during the summer, well before anyone knew the holidays would become a time of war overseas and security alerts at home.

Now, she said, the theme carries an especially “deep meaning.” Many people are missing loved ones “because they lost somebody on Sept. 11 or because their loved one is a member of the United States military and is so bravely defending our country right now overseas,” she told about 200 staff and visitors at the opening of the holiday exhibit at the White House Visitor Center.

The exhibit includes about 40 photographs and a 10-minute video hosted by Bush, designed to give a flavor of the White House decorations and show how they were created.

In one part of the video, White House pastry chefs assemble a large gingerbread replica of the White House as it appeared in 1800, when John Adams became its first resident. The creation took about three weeks to make and contains 80 pounds of gingerbread, 30 pounds of chocolate and 20 pounds of marzipan. The replica now sits in the White House State Dining Room.

Fifteen models of presidential homes were created as part of the holiday decorations. A replica of Sagamore Hill, the Long Island, N.Y., home of Theodore Roosevelt, can be seen in a photo of the East Room. In the Red Room sits a model of Lindenwald, the Hudson Valley farm of Martin Van Buren.

The visitor center itself has three models, representing the homes of Dwight D. Eisenhower in Kansas, Harry S. Truman in Missouri and Herbert Hoover in Iowa. The exhibit will be open until Jan. 6.

“I guess this is a decent, but not great, substitute for the real Christmas tour. It’s not the same thing, but I understand they had to make the substitute,” said Shannon Harton of Richmond, Va., who viewed the exhibit Sunday and had toured the White House during the holidays twice before.

“It would be nice to see the White House, but this is the second best thing,” said Connie Caldwell, a McDonough, Ga., resident who is working temporarily in the Washington area.

The unveiling ceremony also gave officials another chance to urge Americans to visit the nation’s capital, which has suffered a significant decline in tourism because of security fears. Bush was joined at the opening by Washington Mayor Anthony Williams and Barbara Bush, the former first lady and mother of President Bush.

Williams promoted the city’s attractions, prompting Barbara Bush to quip: “Mr. Mayor, I’d really like to stay in one of your cut-rate hotels, but I have relatives here now.”