East Room Holiday Decorations, 1985

This photograph, taken by National Geographic photographer Joseph H. Bailey, shows the East Room decorated for the Christmas season in 1985, during the administration of Ronald Reagan. The theme for 1985 was an "Old-Fashioned Turn-of-the-Century Christmas." The East Room was decorated with flocked trees, which in this photograph frame an 18th-century crèche. The nativity scene was donated to the White House by Mrs. Charles W. Engelhard, Jr. of Far Hills, New Jersey in 1967. The crèche was made in Naples, Italy of terra-cotta and carved wood.