 Good evening. I have been waiting almost two years to say these words. Welcome back. Thank you for joining us this evening, the fourth night of Hanukkah. It's so good to be back in this space. While we have a split audience tonight, many of you are here in person and online. We will continue to offer our online programming for those of you who do not come back, but we would love to see you here when the time comes. Before I introduce our special guests this evening, I just want to say thank you to all of you who have stuck by us at the LBJ Library and the LBJ Foundation during a very, very challenging time. I've said this before and I mean it sincerely, this is the best audience in the world. True. From my perspective. There you go. You guys were supposed to wait until I introduced you. This is not going well at all. This is, wow, okay. So we appreciate your support. We appreciate the support of the Moody Foundation, one of our longtime supporters of the LBJ, the Friends of the LBJ Library. We will in turn try to do the very best in giving you the best in public programming. To that end, next month, we'll resume our in-person programming on January 19th with an evening with author Julia Swag, whose book Lady Bird Johnson and Hiding in Plain Sight has become a sensation. She published the book and then created the podcast in Plain Sight, Lady Bird Johnson with ABC News, which was also a smash success. We will, in addition to that program, we will feature LBJ Library Director Mark Lawrence. I think Mark is here somewhere, who will be doing a six-part series on the American presidency and so there will be more details about that forthcoming. Finally, the store at the LBJ Library will be selling the official 2021 White House Christmas Ornament, which I will be talking to our guest, Stuart McLaurin, about shortly. Now, bear in mind that they sold it before the program, they will sell it after the program, and those of you online can get it at LBJstore.com. This is tax-free day, so you get an additional 10% discount because of that. So get your 2021 White House ornament featuring President Lyndon Baines Johnson. This is our turn in the barrel for the White House Christmas Ornament. It's a big deal for us. Now, tonight it is my pleasure to welcome Stuart McLaurin, the President of the White House Historical Association, an organization he has grown tremendously since he took on the role in 2014. He has also served in leadership roles for the American Red Cross, Georgetown University, and the Reagan Presidential Library Foundation. And we all know Lucy Baines Johnson and our own Lucy, not only as the younger daughter of President and Mrs. Johnson, but for her extraordinary philanthropy and her tireless efforts around voting rights, an issue endemic to the legacy of her father, the 36th President. And finally, her family knows her for her singular devotion as a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. So join me once again, please, in welcoming Stuart McLaurin and Lucy Baines Johnson. Well, clearly I'm a little rusty. I've atrophied during COVID, but I'll try to get my sea legs back tonight. Welcome again, everybody. And welcome to you two. I'm delighted to have you here. Stuart, I'm going to start with you. You and Lucy were just back in New York City with a very big celebration around the 60th anniversary of the White House Historical Association that included Dr. Jill Biden, our first lady. So how did the White House Historical Association begin 60 years ago? Well, I'll be happy to answer that. But first of all, I want to thank you for the invitation to be here at the wonderful LBJ Library and to be with presidential royalty here, Lucy, to join the stage. I don't feel very, don't feel worthy to share the stage with a presidential family member. And to Mark, I really appreciate your friendship that you've been to us at the Association, our work together on the Presidential Sites Summit and many other things. And we look forward to continuing the work that we do together as the Library and the Association. But as you mentioned, we are celebrating our 60th anniversary of the White House Historical Association. And in a nutshell, we were founded in 1961 by then First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. And remember, she's 31 years old when her husband becomes president. She's First Lady for less than three years. But what she put in place, and then the mantle that was taken up by Mrs. Johnson, that process and that procedures, those procedures for historic preservation at the White House, those things are still in place today. What a remarkable legacy for Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Johnson, and those who have followed to take care of that house on behalf of the American people. Because as we were talking about earlier, it belongs to the American people, not to any one particular president. We're a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Our role is exactly the same, regardless who the president and First Lady may be. We've had the privilege of working with 12 of those over the years. And we do that on behalf of the American people. We privately fund the acquisition of items into the collection of the White House, the maintaining of that collection. So when you walk on the state floor, the ground floor, everything you see, decorative arts, fine arts, furnishings, furniture, rugs, draperies, everything in some way was funded or touched or cared for or acquired by the White House Historical Association for the American people. And I don't think people fully realize that. It's a wonderful public-private partnership. And then the last part of our mission, in addition to that, is an education mission. This is where we partner so well with the presidential libraries across the country to teach and tell the stories of the White House and its history dating back to the cornerstone in 1792. And we do that a variety of ways. One of those are these wonderful ornaments, but also publications, public programming, teacher institutes, and a variety of things. So it's a real pleasure to do this on your behalf. We've been doing it for 60 years and I hope we're doing it for 60 more or longer. So Stuart, Jacqueline Kennedy really captured the imagination of the American people around the White House, as she was establishing the White House Historical Association. She did so in part in a television tour. Most of the American people had never seen the White House before, but she gave an enormously popular interview on television. Talk about that and how that ignited public interest in the White House. Well, television was a fairly new medium at the time and Truman had done a television interview, but no one had really taken the American people behind the scenes into the various rooms of the White House, particularly in a way that showcased all of the things that she had done in a pretty short order. So Charles Collingwood of CBS News and this large television camera at the time trundled through these beautiful rooms of the state floor and she told the story behind each of the things that had been acquired. The anniversary of that occasion is coming up on Valentine's Day of 2022 and it was a wonderful Valentine that she gave to the American people of revealing this story and not only was it aired by CBS but something that would be remarkable to us today was aired by ABC, NBC, and CBS. So it was as if the entire nation saw Mrs. Kennedy share the people's house with the American people. It was very special. Lucy, your first Christmas in the White House was in 1963. We had lost President Kennedy on November 22nd just before Thanksgiving and you and your family moved into the White House on December 7th. What was that holiday season like? What do you remember about that holiday season? Well, starting on November 22nd, 1963, the entire house was draped in black cloth of mourning and the American people felt draped in that suffocating grief of black and all of a sudden on December 22nd, 1963, it all came off and not only did it come off but Christmas began and I think I and millions of others Americans had been so devastated by this loss of this vital and attractive and intelligent president and First Lady and little children that we felt like the agony was going to be endless and the emotion and the pain that we felt on November 22nd was going to last forever. So when those black drapes came off and Christmas came, it was a sense of tomorrow is happening. There's hope. There's beauty. There's love still left in the world. They may have killed our president but they cannot kill our people and the American spirit was rekindled again. My mother writes about how wonderful it was to witness that in her White House diary. And as I prepared for tonight, I went back and read over the Christmases. You know, there's nothing like having your mother help you with your homework. And my mother has been dead since 2007 and she continues to help me with my homework because I have that marvelous reference of her White House diary to to go back to. And so I feel the the sense of of relief that my mother felt when I read her memories of that time. But my mother, who was never a self-promoter, never mentioned that that day that the White House black veil of mourning was taken away was also her birthday. So you asked me about that. It was as if we had been all caged in pain for one month and all of a sudden not only was that gone but Christmas was here. The most celebratory, exciting, hopeful time of the year. The time of year where we all look out at people we love and say, I want to tell you so. I want to tell you I love you. And I think Americans who had been feeling such sadness for so long felt an extra appreciation of their fellow countrymen and their fellow human beings in ways that maybe lots of us have forgotten until we went through the pandemic and all of a sudden when we first got to see our mothers and fathers and grandparents and aunts and uncles and children and we realized that the pandemic wasn't going to destroy us if we would just try to do what we had to in order to stay safe and well. We too could do our part and I think that's what Americans felt after the assassination. We too must do our part, our part of mourning but our part of preparing for the future and that was the day that I think in many ways the Johnson administration really began. So you were 16 years old Lucy when you moved into the White House young and you're suddenly thrust into this role as first daughter. Did you feel like your Christmas was your own or did you feel like it sort of belonged to the nation in a way? No of course Christmas belonged to the nation. My mother has a wonderful quote in her White House diary that I won't pretend to recall because memory is a poor servant for me at this age but I think I can paraphrase its spirit and she said I think in the Christmas of 1967 you know every day in the White House is a gift but never more so than at Christmas and I think that that is very much the way that all Americans are feeling today that every gift every day that our country survives every day that our first family appreciates and treasures the privilege of being there is a gift but especially so in the holidays. Stuart since taking over as president of the White House Historical Association in 2014 you've worked with three first families and three first ladies you've worked with Michelle Obama Melania Trump and now Jill Biden so when they're thinking about the White House at Christmas how do they formulate their plans what what goes through their minds and how do they come to fruition those plans? Well you've just referenced three very different first ladies in many many ways but we work within the same and effectively in whatever interest they may have and each of those have taken on Mrs. Obama Mrs. Trump and now Dr. Biden taken on different interests with the House and they all have their own visions their own ideas and planning for the Christmas decorations takes months to to plan so a first lady will talk with her staff about a concept or a theme the theme for this year is gifts from the heart and so as you go through the state floor each room takes on a different gifts there's the gift of family the gift of service the gift of friendship the gift of learning the gift of faith and community and the decorations bring those themes to life and so the staff will work with the first lady and every decoration that has ever been used since the Kennedy years is saved in a warehouse and things are often repurposed they'll look very different sometimes they'll bring in new things oftentimes they'll bring in new things but then they stay in the collection and can be repurposed in future presidencies probably the one thing that has become the most iconic piece of each presidential decorations is the gingerbread house and that really began in the Nixon presidency that was the first to do the gingerbread house and now it's this iconic building literally in the east room the current gingerbread house took 55 sheets of baked gingerbread 120 pounds of this white sugar that almost is like a shellac or a stucco and tardens on the house 35 pounds of chocolate and 25 pounds of royal frosting and it's quite an amazing beast in the east room but they this one is a tribute to first responders and care workers during the COVID pandemic so each one has a different emphasis a different interest a wonderful staff they're all creative they all interpret the house and make it special for those who have the privilege of going through unfortunately during COVID that has not been as much as we would like and we're a big advocate for accessibility into the house so just yesterday I was over there and they were filming ballet dancers in the east room and in the state dining room that they want to feature to show through social media and through a PBS or a HGTV special that's coming out on decorations at the White House to try to show these decorations as much as possible and we at the association have an app on our website you can go to our website and get the information to download this app they will take you through the rooms of the White House as they're decorated for Christmas but each presidency is different they all have a different theme the theme started with mrs kennedy actually I will point out just one other thing that's extremely precious in the decorations and it's to my knowledge the only thing that is consistent every single year and that's the neapolitan crush that's in the east room that was acquired in 1967 by mrs johnson and as you walk down that beautiful red carpeted cross-haul and enter the east room there it is right in front of you and it's virtually floor to ceiling it's spectacular but it has been in that in among the Christmas decorations every year since 1967 and if you read my mother's White House Dairy you will listen to her absolute ecstasy about having made that acquisition and about how the wonderful philanthropist who had acquired it over the years was really down on her hands and knees putting it together like families across the nation do for their families their favorite crushes but this woman was doing it for her country and her in the nation's house for the american people and that was what was so beautiful to me after if you read my mother's diary one of her great concerns in the very beginning of my father's administration is all those extraordinary philanthropists who answered mrs kennedy's call and became a part of the white-ass historical association mother was desperately worried that they might all want to leave they might want to to flee because the lady who had brought them to the party was no longer there and and they didn't necessarily relate to us and ours and mother wanted to let them know how much she valued them how much she appreciated them how much she needed them and how much this was not about her but it was about the american people and it was about our need because when we were formed as a nation we were all so desperately scared of an imperial presidency that we literally uh the congress held a very tight news to to the budget that was allotted for the white house so presidents would bring their own furnishings and they would take their own furnishings home and mrs kennedy wanted to see if she could get people who could afford to maybe help purchase some of these furnishings to bring them back to the white house where they had sort of started off and enrich our our nation's home and she did so very successfully so i i remembered my mother's excitement when she realized that many of these people were going to stay and and live on in their association with the white house long after linden johnson came and went but one other story that you may not know that uh a certain linden johnson was a very sentimental man and he felt very badly that my mother had this painful birthday of december 22nd when all her life she was given a birthday present saying happy birthday merry christmas and the two were not separated anybody in the audience who has a child who has a holiday birthday is nodding i can see you because they felt had those same sentiments and so on their last uh christmas in the white house my father wrote a very beautiful card to my mother saying happy birthday merry christmas but i am going to purchase the christmas tree ornaments that have been placed in the white house and uh under our tenure and bring them home to you that's very special i did not to have at the lbj ranch and so your christmas tree ornaments uh became my uh father's one of my father's last gifts to my mother stewart a year ago the trumps were in the white house celebrating their last christmas um as in the probably weren't celebrating their last christmas well well that's my question that's exactly right but but extraordinarily unusual circumstances there was no transition to speak of between the trump and biden white houses uh we've never had that in our history you've never had a president refuse to observe one of the hallmarks of democracy which is the peaceful transition of of power how did that complicate things for you and your staff at the white house historical association you would think it would but it really did not we work very closely with a core group of people typically the first lady's chief of staff the social secretary the chief usher of the white house which is like the general manager of the residents which is a career position the curator which is the person who actually cares for all the art and objects that is a career position and everyone even the political staff working for the first lady that we worked with conducted themselves very professionally there was even though there was not interaction going on between the outgoing white house staff and the incoming white house staff we were dealing simultaneously during the transition with both so we were briefing the new staff we were providing materials to them about what to expect what projects we have been working on what was underway what they would be continuing and what we had done in the past and it was seamless for us and so although you saw in news reports that there was this tension and this division and certainly there was in our work and in the work of the career people at the white house which there are a number of those Lucy you'll know the wonderful butlers and maids and housekeepers and chefs and florists and those and they're all con artists every one every one of them they make each presidential family feel they love them dressed and and and that that it that is a marvelous gift to first family and they are true public service to feel loved and supported and understood when sometimes you feel the world doesn't understand you the white house staff always does and and uh their gift to their country is so selfless and so dignified and i if i had to give a definition of what is a profession i would say the attitude and the respect and the dependability and the achievements of the white house permanent staff are examples for us absolutely i completely agree absolutely lucy i want to ask about another christmas you spent in the white house 1967 when your sister got married during the holiday season and here's what your mother said about her wedding how could one describe the bride with a mother's license queenly radiant smiling and stunningly beautiful the whole setting was in the grand manner i have never seen a lovelier ceremony so what do you remember about that christmas your sister getting married and i think your father took a four and a half day trip around the world well the facts are that christmas is not just a day it's really a season so we spent technically two christmas days in the white house but we spent five christmas seasons there and uh 1967 i will never forget being awakened at four o'clock in the morning to go downstairs dressed and ready with loving arms to welcome my father back on a trip that he had spent literally 60 hours in the air it was started because prime minister holt of australia had uh disappeared in a swimming accident and my father felt great kinship to him personally into the australian people who had welcomed him into their homes uh during war war two and so he decided he really yearned to be with them as they unexpectedly lost their president and to tell them that their president and their people mattered to this president and our people so he went there but if he went to australia how could he go to australia and not go to vietnam and so of course he went to to see our soldiers and sailors and airmen and all who were serving in vietnam and to tell them that their president cared and their president uh was grateful to them and he also went i think to pakistan which is uh quite moving considering today's circumstances uh he had a great respect for iub khan who was poignantly focused on trying to help his third world country come into the the world of nations with more opportunity for all of his people and he had programs that were very much like the great societies in terms of housing and education and those sorts of things and my father felt a great appreciation and wanted to let him know that he honored that uh how penetrating that is today when we think about all the things that have changed in our relationships uh and then of course my father was first and foremost the most ecumenical man i ever knew and i think i ever will know he went to he started off church at his own church at nine o'clock in the morning and then he went to eleven o'clock service with mother and then he went to one o'clock service with me and i kept telling me daddy you don't need to go with me uh you've already been twice and he said to me lucy you think it's about uh uh the fact that i'm trying to be a loving daddy especially when my husband was in vietnam the next year and uh he said it's not that it's when you're in my position you need all the help you can get and so he decided he needed all the help he could get and how could he end this trip during the holy season of christmas and not go by italy and see the pope and see by visiting together somehow some way they could create peace on earth goodwill to men really not be just an aspiration but a fact so he came home and he landed at andrew's air force base at three thirty in the morning or three forty five and then he helicoptered to the south lawn and we marched down like little oh uh soldiers ourselves to the front door little nutcrackers would be more appropriate this time of year to the front door to greet him with open arms and say welcome back daddy we're so glad to have you thinking misguidedly that he would want to go to bed and fall asleep and stay there for uh several days because he's done this all in less than a week four and a half days uh that was not the case with linden johnson nobody loved christmas more than linden johnson and he was into the idea of giving and he had to have an outfit for every woman on his staff and uh i'm looking out and i'm seeing one who might have been a recipient one of those outfits uh and uh he had to have a president for president for every man on his staff and he wanted to make sure that uh everyone that had befriended him felt his friendship that year and of course uh while he wanted all of those things it took an awful lot of elves to make it happen so uh members of the staff who were already feeling reasonably burdened and especially those 200 of them that had gone around the the world with him in this lightning speed uh tour of the universe um got busy being santus elves and he didn't stop for a minute until christmas was over because he wanted to celebrate the hope that he was feeling after that phenomenal trip with everybody he loved and and one of the people who accompanied your father on that trip is sitting in the audience larry temple with a special council to the president when he took that four and a half day trip around the world absolutely and larry serves as president of our foundation very ably and very lovingly although he does try to remind us sometimes that he still has a uh full-time day job uh we we we understand that we recognize that appreciate that and so we know in true linden johnson family he's working more than one full-time job and at christmas we want to acknowledge that and say thank you very much and thank you to his beloved bride for having put up with it all these many years also has a december 26th birthday so uh merry christmas happy birthday you understand that feeling mother had steward uh talk about dr biden and what she thought about when she put together the white house this christmas well it was the gifts from the heart theme that she came up with and it was depicting the various gifts that are important to all of us as i mentioned family community faith even she gets into the performing arts into nature uh the and um it's beautifully depicted in through throughout the rooms of the house it's funny how the press though will criticize the trump decorations and then they'll turn around and criticize the biden decorations because they were different than the trump decorations but every first lady does what inspires them and what they want to share with the american people the thing that i like about what mrs biden did this year is the the decorations are elegant sophisticated but it allows the house to show through the white house itself and that i think is very important that you don't clutter or cover the significance of that people's house but that you highlight it and bring it to life and so i think her theme uh and the way that it's been decorated is really really beautiful and and those gifts are what a first family uh tries to do that's right and whatever time they're allotted it is the spirit of christmas yes but it's it's the spirit of uh the presidency and the gifts of the family is in the state dining room there are two trees flanking the lincoln portrait above the mantle and they're covered in photographs of all presidential families including the johnson family and so it's really beautiful they've she's done a real i think a very good job of trying to depict presidencies and families throughout the course of our nation's history not focus on the present family so joe biden was the second lady for eight years she's been first lady for just under a year how does she look at the role of first lady well i think you know it does prepare you somewhat but until you come into that particular role and you're looked at by the entire country you have expectations placed on you to be the first lady of the united states you're not given a salary there is no job description that you have to perform and yet having worked collaboratively and closely with mrs obama she had ideas and issues that she wanted to continue and one thing that i think is very impressive is that she has continued teaching she's a community college teacher and she teaches uh we try to schedule things or do things with the white house and the days are blocked off because she's teaching those days and she has that commitment so the first first lady in modern times that has had a job outside of the job of being first lady which is a full-time job so that is somewhat unique but i think their family is also very important and bringing them together and i was in the west wing one day presenting something to the president and in bounces a bunch of grandchildren you know just in and out and it's really it's wonderful you get the sense that it's a home to them it's here's this one small box of a president's house and it's the office to the president and his staff it's the home to the president and his family it's the ceremonial stage if you will upon which our nation receives its most important guests and it's also a museum during which normal times half a million or so people a year get to go through and if you can imagine all of that happening at your house that's a lot of activity but i think she balances it really really well that having been espoused to the vice president for those years she sort of trained and observed i think it helped her as well so she knew what she wanted to do a little bit better when she came into office or came into being first lady mark i'd like to follow up on the question you asked me earlier because i understand that this evening is being recorded for friends of the lbj library outside of this wonderful room to see at the time of their own choosing and i'd like to make an additional comment december 9th 1967 my mother's words about my sister were all true she was an exquisite bride who had chosen a long red velvet dress that was high style and looked marvelous on her and it celebrated christmas just just the way she was dressed and so i i said red did i oh shame on me it's white obviously to the bra but but everything else was in red our rides made stresses were in red and it it it was an elegant beautiful evening my mother was so proud of her but she was also aware that my father could be tempted to do some things that might upstage the bra cannot imagine and my and my mother and i were determined if it were possible to see that avoid it was not linden johnson waited until i confess i'm very grateful he waited till the last minute uh after the bride and groom had cut their cake and and had their major celebration to go get his grandchild uh to come to the wedding and of course the grandchild was 18 months old and and um probably was bent a little bit towards upstage and and then he went and got his dog uh that was dressed in a sequined coat that said congratulations so so my father as i said he loved christmas and he wanted to celebrate with everybody from the babies to the dogs even at my sister's wedding uh and my sister was uh blessedly a wonderful sport about it all i'm reminding when you talked about your father your fear of your father upstaging linda your sister of a quote about teddy roosevelt whose daughter said of him he wanted to be the the bride at every wedding the corpse at every funeral and the baby at every christening and and when and and when asked uh about controlling alice he said i can either be president of the united states or i can control alice i can't do both at the same time steward uh you had not had the vantage point on the white house that you have now before you took the job what most surprised you about the white house operation after you began observing it in your current post well i think we've already touched on that and that is we perceive it to be this influx and outflow of political personalities that come in and the white house gets reduced to who's standing behind a podium what says the white house behind them or maybe a speech from the oval office but it's a very large apparatus of activity and events that keep in motion the life of the president and the activity of the white house and so i was really pleased to meet and get to know all of these people that work behind the scenes sort of the wizard of oz effect of behind the walls of the white house and that was surprising to me because i was not completely familiar with that but it's inspirational as well so that was probably the most significant thing for me and then has also alluded to the smooth transition between for us going from working with mrs obama and her team to mrs trump and her team and dr biden and her team i would not have thought there would have been that as smooth as it's been for us but it has been but if i could just step in as other as you have gone to go back to a harken thing we've mentioned linda several times and she is a wonderful friend to us as well and has done many projects for us but that wedding in the east room 54 years ago this december was the last wedding that was held in the east room of the white house so a significant piece of history and of course it was christmas time which added a whole different festive mood to it and it was also christmas of 1967 that the watercolor uh that is depicted on this ornament this robert leslie watercolor that your mother had commissioned of the christmas tree in the blue room was done that christmas and it became the feature of this year's ornament so christmas of 67 was significant for this and for the wedding and everything about life in the white house is complex and so was that wedding as many weddings across the country were it was a day of great celebration of a beautiful bride and an elegant groom who was a member of the white house socials staff and uh from the marine corps and an escort there for the ladies who came singly to white house events they would dress uh they would dance with them they would present the names of the people who were coming through a receiving line uh and uh my sister came through a receiving line one day and i think eyes met and that was the end of that uh but this really remarkable patriot was not only getting married but he'd gotten orders to go to vietnam and so there was that that power over that marvelous once in the lifetime and they've been married over 50 years so it really has been once of a lifetime event was uh covered some degree with the recognition that uh it was not long before he would leave uh for vietnam uh something that a lot of people in the military had kind of hoped that might not happen because of how it might be difficult to have a president's son in in a war theater but something chucked as a very patriotic marine wanted very much to do so uh when that came time for them to leave the east room they marched out under a swords uh by his fellow marines uh and then they took chuck sword and cut the wedding came and so it it really was such a sentimental journey filled with the best of times and also recognizing some of the most painful of times and i think that christmas is like that for lots of us when we look around and we see that somebody we love isn't at the table who was once there when we see some little person who is there who who we never knew might be uh it's a season of of mixed emotions and so was that a day of mixed emotions for all of us for linda and chuck who began their life in the white house and have spent that life in public service ever since as as lucy suggests the the bride linda johnson the groom chuck rob have been married 54 years this month it's a remarkable thing so i want to i want to ask you the same question i asked steward uh you came into the white house under far different circumstances than and steward uh beginning his job but you had been the daughter of the vice president in those days there was no official white uh residents for the vice president we now have the naval observatory in washington where the the second family lives but that didn't exist for your family you lived in a private home but you moved into the white house as we discussed on december 7th what was your biggest surprise what was the biggest revelation about the white house when you became a resident of that mansion well uh let me step back a moment if i might uh i'm walking up the stairs of our private residents uh during the vice presidency after the assassination and i hear my parents voice voices raised and frankly i never heard my parents voices raised towards each other and so i did what no daughter ought to ever do but uh i was tempted to walk towards the door and kind of put my ear to it to hear what this was all about and my father was saying bird we have to and my mother was saying any day any day but move into the white house on december 7th and my father said it's a day that's convenient for mrs kennedy and for the secret service and it's not about us it's about them and it's about the nation and it's what we have to do and i was a young 16 year old who hadn't taken american history yet and who didn't appreciate fully that uh december 7th was the day that uh america had gone to war after the bombing of pearl harbor so for my mother's generation it was exceedingly painful to launch something that was so important as my father's presidency on that day and so she for the first time in my memory and the last time uh was raised her voice and plaintive request any day but that day but when my father said it's about the nation it's not about us she said of course of course and so we moved into the white house during that christmas season and two as i alluded earlier the very painful presence of black draping everywhere and the first two weeks were all about uh morning and my first two weeks living in the white house uh were all about morning um but when we had that first christmas and we were delayed leaving to go to the ranch my father was desperate to go to the lbj ranch because the lbj ranch the hill country of texas uh my father always said where the people was the place where people knew when you were sick and they cared when you died and he had been through so much and he wanted that comfort of home that comfort of home and i think that we all yearn for during the holidays and so my mother wanted it for him but the congress was in session and there was much to be decided and major bill to take place with foreign aid the more things change the more they stay the same and so my father wasn't about to leave he'd been senate majority leader before and he felt he knew better than to leave town when there was still work to be done no matter how desperate he was to come home for the holidays but on december 24th uh the rest of the congress decided that they were desperate to go home for the holidays too and they found some way to come and reason together and pass that legislation and be able to go home and so we didn't spend that that christmas eve at the white-ass we spin it on air force warn going home to the people who knew us best and loved us anyway and it was a great time of celebration but what i discovered i guess was that um for me the beginning days in the white-ass were full of excitement new things i had i had a fireplace in my room and it was christmas season uh wow how how fancy how exciting how storybook that was and then i found that everything i said and everything i did was not only subject to observation of the american people but could somehow bring either joy to my parents and pride or public pain to them as well so i realized that um not only is a first lady someone who has an unpaid job but every member of a first family really does and while my father was very much in favor of child labor laws he had never intended to think that that uh uh involved his children and so linda and i from the time we were able to carry a coat of a constituent we were there when people entered the door and went and put them up and we had always been a little bit like the farm families where everybody has a job somebody tells the field and somebody gathers in the chickens and somebody gathers in the eggs and somebody um takes care of the farm animals everybody has a job well that's kind of the way my parents looked at those next five years for linda and me we always had a job but we knew whatever that job how much it may have impeded upon our adolescent social life there were more jobs that were more important to do and so during those next five years i covered 26 states by myself uh campaigning because my father made me feel like i was so important to his presidency that uh if i didn't go and i didn't thank all of these people for our family um he was depending upon me he was counting on me i felt i was important and of course i think from his perspective he knew it was better to have me think i was an important part of the family than i was on the outside and and full of resentment so he knew how to appeal to to my vanity so uh those first few days and in the white house was an introduction to the course that was to come but uh my mother uh said it best and i know i've shared this with you i'm not sure i've shared it with all of you so forgive me if this memory of a nearly 75 year old uh is repetitive but every day in the white house was going to be a gift but never more so than at christmas speaking of christmas steward the the white the enormously successful white house ornament program was established 20 years after the white house historical association was established by jacklyn kennedy talk about the origins of the white house ornament program well this uh little ornament here began in 1981 in christmas of 1981 nancy reagan was first lady the first christmas of the reagan presidency and i often joke that if i had been in the room when a group of staff went in and talk with her and had the idea of an ornament i would have thought sure fine do a christmas ornament but thank goodness they did because this took off and has been the bread and butter financially for our organization for decades we now have broadened that to traditional philanthropy and that's doing very well but this became um very very very popular really quickly and i'm sure many of all of you have seen it many of you probably collected them but when she made that decision went a good thing for me is the decision was made to feature a different president each year sequentially so i don't have to think about okay what president are we going to feature this year and get in trouble that way so we started with george washington and we have now rolled up to linda johnson and we've paused a few years along the way to commemorate a significant white house anniversary like the 200th anniversary of the white house in the year 2000 but these for the past 41 years now have been made or 41 christmases have been made by a veteran founded small business in rhoda island they're all american made each one depicts the presidency in some way as i mentioned there's that robert lesig watercolor of the blue room christmas tree on the reverse are the texas blue bonnets that mrs johnson love so the beautiful quote by president johnson our mission is it wants the oldest and the most basic of this country to right wrong to do justice to serve man and this little tool is not just something beautiful it's not just something that helps fund our organization but it teaches a story of white house history each one every year comes with a booklet that tells the story of that entire presidency and you'll that family on the front will look very familiar to well it does but i'd like to make a comment about it and there's no way any of you all out there in the audience can see that but if you buy one you will you will see that my sister is smiling for the camera as she should and i respect and appreciate that but i'm looking a little melancholy and i think that that was a combination of two sister's response linda is living up to the day and handling it with grace and i am succumbing a little bit to the fact that my husband is in vietnam both of our husbands of course were in vietnam so it was an unusual christmas uh for this family because uh our husbands were the last to sons-in-law of a president to serve in a war theater and we are showing some of that you'll see that my son is sitting on my lap with his daddy half a world away that my sister's brand new daughter is sitting in her arms with her husband half a world away and my father has a dog and a merry christmas out there so so it sort of sort of tells a great story of a family it does because um so many christmas's sense there have been a families like ours who's uh husbands and wives and sons daughters have been away at christmas serving our country now president biden has brought our men and women home from afghanistan but around the world they're american patriots in our military and uh in our our diplomatic corps who will be away from their loved ones at christmas and feeling that sense of of absence and loss and this was just one of those many many families who's felt at once and understood and understands what that is like you mentioned the presidential grandchildren and pointed them out in this picture and i think you may know this story but i think it's very powerful and poignant that your grandmother in january of 1969 just before leaving office had the idea to create a children's garden which is tucked away down by the tennis court not in public view and since the johnson presidency the presidential grandchildren not children grandchildren have all put their hands or footprints into the cement there in that beautiful garden so the follow-up on that is you have just made my year because you said my grandmother oh obviously it was my mother i'll take it steward i'll take it it's an understandable mistake and run with the compliment thank you for correcting me and uh we went down to dedicate this wonderful garden and uh my son who was 18 months old and busy and i may have taken my eye off of him for just a moment and he ended up in the pond and and so uh a wonderful uh member of that white house extended family right my mother's social secretary best able had joined us and in a moment she takes off her coat gives it to me and i wrap my son in her coat and whiz off from the rest of the dedication to take him up to the house to make sure that he doesn't catch cold uh for the last days that we have in the white house uh but that i think is kind of the spirit of those who who serve in the white house they literally take off their coats for the first family and at the coats off their back to try to be of service to their country and uh uh best has a great book coming out and in in january telling that story so i'd like to take the opportunity to say once more to her family thank you for the service and she just recently passed she was a wonderful lady and i had my sister and i both had the privilege of of speaking at the memorial uh for her uh for her but uh not only did she serve but of course her uh she served as my mother's social secretary and uh her husband tyler served as our chief of protocol so they were really quite a washington power couple that's quite a wonderful couple and uh we uh spent many precious moments with them and among them that dedication of that garden right well that's an example of your mother doing something that was um unique to that presidency but has lingered and lasted and become part of every presidency sense and that was a gift from from my mother to the white house she wanted to have one parting gift to the white house my mother had a degree from the university of texas where we uh are now a part of here at the lbj library uh uh in history and she had a degree in journalism and you know she also was those two degrees useful to her and serve and where else did she go to college oh she went to school in uh in uh what was essentially first year in a sort of a finishing school well no no no well university you may say that but you have an interest in this answer yes of course uh my alma mater is the university of alabama and your mother went to school for a summer at the university of alabama summer in alabama yes that's right so roll climb her and claim her that's what i was i was thinking about her first year that's right some people call alabama finishing school well it's no no no no i was i was not referred this this school has this school has gone out of business uh decades ago right well we're very proud of that connection well i want to quote lucy's father who said on christmas eve in 1967 when you think of the bravery of the human spirit and the compassion of the human heart and the power of life to triumph over pain and darkness you are properly thankful your own spirits are lifted higher and you say it and you mean it as i do now merry christmas and happy holidays i want to thank steward mclauren and our own lucy johnson for a delightful evening and i want to wish you all a merry christmas and happy holidays thanks so much for doing that thank you and come back in january please and get an ornament or 20 and get an ornament thank you all very much we hope you will join us and having on your tree another one of these marvelous right as historical association trees thank you thank you all thank you