Decorating the White House for Christmas

It is not part of their job. In fact, if it had been a weekday I doubt they could have come, but then if had been a weekday I could have made other arrangements. Thanks to Public Safety, especially to PSO’s Britt Sanders and Glen Nichols, my Sunday was saved. For most of the week a slight touch of the flu kept me from going anywhere. Sunday morning rolled around and feeling much better, I decided to go get groceries, but as luck would have it the tire bandits had visited me during the night leaving me with a pancake flat tire. This happens once or twice a year; some bored person thinks it funny to flatten my tires never stopping to consider what would happen if an emergency arose. Usually there is someone I can call but not this year; not on a Sunday and Tires Plus does not make house calls. My only other course of action was to call Public Safety and beg for enough air to get me to the tire place. Also as luck would have it they do not carry air or one of those little emergency generators that plug into the lighter socket so they did they next best thing; they changed my tire. I could not thank them enough for taking the time to do this for me. They were both efficient, pleasant and a credit to the department. Made it to Tire’s Plus without incident where the manager on duty and the young man working could not have been nicer.
First let me qualify what is about to be written. It is not bi-partisan. It is not anti-Republican. It is a waste and a travesty. For the past few years I have watched in disgust HGTV’s special on decorating the White House for Christmas. The opulence, the abundance, the hypocrisy, and the waste just floors me. Yes, there is a need to decorate our nation’s capitol during the season but is there a need to flaunt the fact that our taxes are paying for mouth-blown crystal ornaments by the thousands or clear red glass egg ornaments etched in real gold or hundreds of hand made mirrored ornaments? Is there a need to purchase and prepare the finest cuts of prime beef when so many in our country are in need of a meal? Is there a need to change the decorations on a yearly basis and when they do what happens to the decorations from previous years? Are they kept, thrown away, distributed among the elite, put in a museum or taken home by the sitting President when his term has ended? How many trees were cut down just to make a show? An eighteen foot tree in the grand hall; a tree in every room of the first family’s quarters decorated with hand made cookies from all the pastry chefs in the White House kitchen that you and I pay for. Tree in the Blue Room, trees along the walls, hundreds of feet of fresh garlands with yet more ornaments. Carpenters that we pay for building artificial trees, drums and other decorations. I suppose this has been going on since the time we elected our first President but to see it in all its lavishness is another thing entirely. They spend as if the funds are unlimited when so many have limited funds. Thousands of lights and ornaments, specialty built center pieces, gingerbread houses that weigh 300 pounds, unimaginable amounts of food prepared by chefs we are paying for parties given every day and night during the season and all the while in cities across America some have no food or decorations or presents to open. And how hypocritical is it that debates abound within the states as to the proper terms we are to use during this time of year and the White House seems to be immune? They have a Christmas tree while they are trying to shove a holiday tree down our throats. I wonder, does all that lavish decoration, gourmet food, and endless celebration on our dime cause any guilt at all or do they think they are entitled?