You can order this year's official White House Christmas Ornament direct for $23.
The same ornament is available from the Richard Nixon Foundation for $26.95.
The latter is the best deal.
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That is, it's a better deal if you're willing to shlep to the Richard Nixon Museum and Library in Yorba Linda, where the foundation's Museum Store is located.
Doing so cuts out the shipping costs charged by WhiteHouseChristmasOrnament.com, whose cheapest option is Priority Mail at $5.95. That pushes a $23 ornament up to $28.95.
The White House Christmas Ornament Collection puts out an official hanging trinket each year featuring a scene from a bygone presidency. The 2009 White House Grover Cleveland Christmas Ornament depicts a view of the South
Lawn and façade of the White House on a crispy winter evening.
“Inside
the window, a Christmas tree with bright lights and decorations
illuminates the starry night from the Oval Room,” reads the product description. “These lights pay
tribute to the first Christmas tree in the White House to have electric
lights. The back of the ornament shows a glance of one of many famous
Christmas parties that the Cleveland family was known to throw.”
Cleveland, the only person to serve two non-consecutive terms as president, was the
only Democrat to be elected commander-in-chief during the 1860-1912 Republican
political era. If you were around and saw a $1,000 bill from 1928-1946, you know Cleveland's mug appeared on the front of it.
The 2009 Barack Obama 56th Presidential Inauguration Ornament, which depicts the current Grover Cleveland on the front steps of the Capitol getting sworn in with wife Michelle at his side on Jan. 20, 2009, is only $20.
But the Dicksters beat the competition there, too. The Museum Store sells the Richard Nixon Birthplace Ornament 2009 or the Holiday Wishes From the President and the King ornament–with that beat-into-the-ground snapshot of Nixon and Elvis–for only $15.95 each.
Of course, for any such purchases, one must factor in that proceeds from Museum Store sales help a private foundation dedicated to rabid Nixon apolgia.
Let your conscience be your guide.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.