Clintons in Front of the 1996 White House Christmas Tree in the Blue Room

This photograph of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton in front of the official Blue Room Christmas tree was taken in December 1996. Mrs. Clinton chose to decorate the 1996 tree with ornaments based on Peter Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" ballet, a theme first selected by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961, and again by First Lady Barbara Bush in 1990. The White House invited 300 ballet companies, one-hundred woodcraft artists, and 350 members of the American Needlepoint Guild and Embroiderers' Guild of America to make ornaments for the Colorado blue spruce.