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Pictures: Here's how the White House is decked out for Christmas

Most of the decorating is done each year by volunteers.

NEW AT THE White House this Christmas: penguins, snowmen and snowwomen, and hanging snowflakes.

Returning for the holiday season: larger-than-life replicas of the Obamas’ dogs Bo and Sunny, an 18-and-a-half-foot tree dedicated to US military families and a gingerbread White House — covered in dark chocolate, instead of white chocolate as in years past, and weighing in at nearly 500 pounds.

White House Holidays AP AP

In all, some 62 trees and 70,000 ornaments, most of them reused from years past, decorate the White House this year.

The Fraser tree that dominates the Blue Room features messages to US troops from their families on a ribbon that wraps around the tree.

White House Holidays AP AP

White House visitors are greeted at the East Wing entrance by a family of plywood penguins before walking down a hallway with paper snowflakes hanging overhead.

There’s one snowflake for each state and US territory, along with others made by local schoolchildren who adorned them with hand-written wishes.

White House Holidays AP / PA AP / PA / PA

White House Holidays AP / PA AP / PA / PA

Outside the hallway windows, 56 snowmen and women, some wearing hats and scarves or earmuffs, look on from the first lady’s garden.

White House Holidays AP AP

And there are presents pretty much everywhere.

White House Holidays AP / PA AP / PA / PA

White House Holidays AP / PA AP / PA / PA

White House Holidays AP / PA AP / PA / PA

Read: Here are all the movies on RTÉ and TV3 this Christmas

Read: From rooming with two sisters to a brand new home with her partner for Christmas

Author
Associated Foreign Press
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