Time to Shine

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 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. Hoover and his wife salvaged the old wood when the roof was replaced, and they ordered Christmas gifts for their staff to be fashioned from it. In 1930, more than 200 employees received the unusual presents--everything from bookends to candlesticks.

Most of the exhibit, however, deals with Christmas cards sent by the first families. Dwight Eisenhower’s cards usually were graced with a portrait or landscape the president himself had painted. He sent similar gift prints to staff and friends.

But the Eisenhowers showed their silly sides in a card to close friends one year. They were caricatured in Santa suits below a greeting that said: “We wanted to put something of ourselves in our Christmas card to you.” Inside is a lip print of a kiss by Mamie and a thumb print of the president’s.

The Seeleys have a story behind every item in their exhibit, which has traveled to the White House twice. 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. (If you think your holiday card list is long, pity poor Bill and Hillary Clinton, who mail out about 300,000 specially designed Christmas cards.)

“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 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.

Each president put his own spin on the official Christmas greeting. “President Kennedy was going to send telegrams until he realized how much it would cost,” Mary Evans Seeley said. The rarest piece in the collection is a 1963 Christmas card, which depicts a creche, that the Kennedys never sent. “Before they went to Dallas, they had signed less than 30,” she said.

The collection has other intimate touches, like a card Ronald and Nancy Reagan sent. Artist Jamie Wyeth had painted a snowy scene with squirrel tracks leading to the White House. “The president would gather acorns from Camp David and set them outside the oval office,” she said.

BE THERE

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 40 Presidential Drive, near Simi Valley, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 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.

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Holiday Events

The Reagan library has scheduled activities every weekend through December:

* Sunday, children ages 8-14 can join in a craft workshop from noon-4 p.m. A similar workshop for visitors 15 and older is scheduled Dec. 14. The cost for each is $10; reservations required.

* The museum’s free holiday open house is Dec. 6, featuring carolers, dancing, storytelling and a visit from Santa at noon.

* The youth group New World Singers performs Dec. 14 at 1 p.m.

* The music, dancing, costumes and food of several ethnicities will be featured: Polish on Nov. 29; African American and Central South American, Dec. 13; Lithuanian, Dec. 20; and Latin American, Dec. 27.