The East Room is a wonderland, the roast beef is perhaps the best in the country and while there is only one president among the many portraits of his predecessors, the reigning king of the night is grand Christmas cake, slathered in old-school fondant frosting.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a small book's worth of stories about what one glimpses in the White House when one's lucky enough to be among the several thousand guests invited to the president's annual holiday party.
Invited along with me to experience this were friends who had never before been to the White House, let alone a party there, a chance that proved somehow as exciting for me as it was for them. Along the way, encountered again or for the first time were the White House chef Sam Kass, screenwriter of Christmas movies Rich Burns, the Huffington Post's own Arianna Huffington, and Susan Eisenhower who grew up in this mansion, granddaughter of Ike and Mamie, otherwise known as the president and Mrs. Eisenhower.
To see some 30 original and previously unpublished photographs and "walk" through the White House Christmas party, see the full story and all images at http://carlanthonyonline.com.
