Consequently, I hit "snooze" three times before finally prying open my eyes at 7:45 and realized: I have 15 minutes to get my butt to the White House, approximately 25 blocks away in rush hour traffic.
I roused a grumpy but ultimately heroic boyfriend to drive me down, and I was on line by 8:05, and ran into some of my colleagues who were held up at the front gate. Because my name was on the cleared list, I was able to help speed their clearance along... they'd been waiting for 40 minutes in the icy cold for someone to run their drivers licenses. (Since the Salahis, things have been in a bit of a disarray down at 1600.)
Anyway! Here's what I almost missed but for an indulgent boyfriend with a car and love in his heart. The pictures don't quite do it justice....
the east door, and below, the highlight for me. A difficult to photograph series of wreaths -- each with a different fruit or vegetable, tightly packed -- pears, citrus, pomegranates, artichokes, and something that looked cross between a pear and a purple gourd. The latter is the first wreath on the left. Then there were little orange somethings... peppers?
The East Room -- where the president sometimes has press conferences -- was decked out with peacocks. Here's a close up of one of the mantle decorations followed by the mantle and a tree in the room. There was scaffolding still up... some last minute decorating going on. 
this tree, above, was made with gold painted newspapers
the tree above was topped with a sheaf of wheat. The theme for the whole house is "simple gifts."
these branches were beautiful but also didn't photograph well. Tiny crystal (or plastic, who knows) cubes were wired to look like an ice storm had just rolled through. Gorgeous.
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