home decoration items

narrator:welcome to the white house. over the course ofthe holiday season, the president and first lady will welcome 70, 000 visitorsto tour the people's house and take in the decorations. today, for the first time,we're so excited to host a holiday google plus hangout to open the doors of the whitehouse to even more people that are joining us virtuallyfrom around the country.

i would like to introduceour special guest joining us from the statefloor of the white house, white house pastrychef bill yosses, and the white house florist,laura dowling, who are -- we are joined byyoung people around the country, including a third grade class inlinda herrington elementary in round rock, texas.wave, guys. students:hi! narrator:we have fifth

and sixth graders atfireside elementary in phoenix, arizona. narrator:and a second grade class at south prairie elementaryin grimes, iowa. narrator:and i know that bill and laura are so excited to answer allof your questions, as well as questions that are coming in on twitter. so, if you'd liketo post a question, use the hashtag #whhangout,and i'll be screening

those questions, and we'llget those asked as well. so, i would like to turn it overto linda herrington elementary to ask a first question. male student:can you tell us about this year's themeand how you chose it? laura dowling:well, yes -- bill yosses:go ahead. yes. laura dowling:i could. good morning, everyone.

well, this year's themeis 'gather around,' and it's the first lady'stheme, a beautiful choice. it really highlights thekey sentiments of the holiday season, the joyof gathering together to celebrate traditions,spending time with friends and family, giving to others,and the spirit of kindness and generosity, andthen really sharing uplifting stories of hopeand inspiration. bill, do you haveanything to add?

bill yosses:yeah, that we really just found this to be a great subjectto work with and to express through the visual designsthat laura and i made for the holiday season. narrator:fantastic. fireside elementary,what's your question? female student:what is your favorite holiday to decorate for and why? laura dowling:that's such a hard question,

because there are so manywonderful holidays we celebrate here at the white house. christmas is so special, but wealso have fun with halloween and easter celebrations. it's really hardfor me to choose. bill yosses:they are a special time and we want everybody thatcomes into the white house, whether they're physicallyhere or virtually like you all are rightnow, we want them to have

a very special experience. narrator:and how about south prairie? female student:this is for bill. how long does it take tomake the gingerbread house, and how much frosting is used? bill yosses:great question. well, we spend about six weekspreparing the gingerbread house. in between the planning andordering of the flour and sugar, it takes that much timeto put it all together,

and it came out beautifully,we think, this year. and for frosting -- wellthat's an interesting question, because we used sort of adifferent kind of frosting. this year we made somespring roll cookies. so, that's a -- sort ofa traditional cookie from pennsylvania thatmake up the fireplace, and then for frosting we usedwhite chocolate to make the -- to use the columns in the northportico of the white house. so, there's a lot of differentkinds of sort of candy

and cookies that wentinto this white house, but everything you seebehind me there is edible. narrator:i think this is a perfect moment to show a little bit behind the scenes in the making of thegingerbread house. can we roll the clip? ♪♪(holiday music)♪♪ narrator:bill, do you have anything to add after the video?

bill yosses:well, it did seem like a lot longer when we were doing this, but yeah. you see the whole process thereand that clip is available on whitehouse.gov, as well assome information about the other decorationsin the white house. it's just a very special timeof year and we want, as we said, everybody to have areally unique experience when they come to visit. narrator:thank you.

lot's more atwhitehouse.gov/holidays for tons of information aboutthis year's decorations, and if you have questionsfor laura or bill, go on twitter rightnow and use #whhangout, and we will ask some ofyour questions as well. at linda herrington elementary,do you have another question? teacher:we do. female student:what education did you need to be a chef?

bill yosses:well, that's a very good question and myopinion, the more education the better, no matter what you do, because all professions sort of interconnect these days with every other profession. for example, i'm a chef. laura is a florist, highlyskilled decorative artist, and we work together. so, the more i understand abouther world and she understands about mine, the betterwe can work together.

so, whether your interestis science, or math, or art, or history, all those things areimportant to be successful in your career. so, i did go to college, andthen i went to culinary school after that, andin culinary school i learned my specific trade, but i neededall that other education in order to succeed atbeing a chef. laura dowling:and i think the same is true for my field as well.

i didn't start out as a florist. i went to college andstudied political science, and had a completelydifferent career, and changed careers when ifound a passion for flowers, and started working and becomingvery interested in design. i went to school to study design and here we are atthe white house. bill yosses:yeah. very good question. narrator:how about fireside elementary?

male student:i was curious, how much dough do youproduce each year? bill yosses:how much dough do we produce each year? well, the cookiedough alone in a year is about 20,000 pounds,and about half of that is used at christmas time. that's when we make the most cookies to distribute for all of the events here. narrator:and south prairie? female student:this is for laura.

what flower is usedmost in the white house? laura dowling:well, we use a mix of seasonal flowers in all of our arrangements, but i would say the flower that we end up using most of all is the rose. it's the nationalflower of the united states. it's always beautiful,it comes in many colors, it's long lasting;and so typically you'll see a lot of rosesin our displays here. i'm going to kick it backto fireside elementary

for a question. male student:what is the president's favorite pastry, and of all thepresidents you've served, which one has had thebiggest sweet tooth? bill yosses:very good question. president obama's favoritepastry is fruit pie. he loves the good old fashionedapple pie, blueberry pie, and coconut cream pie. so, that's an easy one.

he really loves those,and i would say that the president that has thebiggest sweet tooth is george w. bush, and i'm surehe would admit to it himself. he loves desserts. narrator:we have a question from twitter and for all of you that are watching at home, use the hashtag #whhangout if you would like topose a question. laura asks, "how did youget the opportunity

to work at the white house?" laura dowling:you want me to start? bill yosses:you go -- narrator:sure, laura. go ahead. laura dowling:well, my opportunity started when my predecessor,nancy clarke retired, and there was an article inthe paper about her retirement. my husband said that he thoughti should apply for the job, and so i ended up sending ina resume to the white house,

never expecting that iwould hear back from anyone. and a couple of monthslater, i was invited back for an interview, and thena series of interviews that ended in a floralcompetition, with three people. we all had designs tomake for the blue room, for the oval office,for a state dinner. the first ladyinterviewed all of us, and i ended up getting the job. it was about aseven-month process,

and that was aboutfour years ago. bill yosses:i had a similar experience. yes, the person before me who hadthe job was here for 25 years. so when he retired,roland mesnier, they were sort of at a loss,and so they kind of went out and invited people to come in and doa tasting of different desserts. when -- and after the interviewi found out i was hired. narrator:bill, we have a follow-up question foryou. how many chefs

work at the white house? bill yosses:we have -- in the pastry shop there are two full time chefs,and in the main kitchen there are four. when wehave these big events at this time of year, the holidays, we bring in chefs from the area and some culinary students to help us. bill yosses:so, it adds up to about maybe 10 in the pastry shop and 20 in the main kitchen. laura dowling:and you can't even imagine

what a small spacethat bill works in. we've had all of those people -- bill yosses:yeah, we have a very small kitchen.somehow it all works out. narrator:i will -- south prairie, do you have another question? male student:yes, we do. this is for laura. how many lights are used todecorate the white house? laura dowling:well, if i thought about

how many trees we have,between 40 and 50 throughout the whole white house complex, and that each tree probably has almost1, 000 lights, maybe 40,000 all together, andthey're led lights for efficiency, energyefficiency. so, every year it's tons of lights to make the trees very twinkly and sparkly, and we can reuse themfrom year to year too. narrator:all right, we have another question from twitter, and for those of you

that are watching at home,use the hashtag #whhangout. we're posing yourquestions as well. this question comes from karen. "my first and secondgraders want to know if the president eats the gingerbread house." bill yosses:well, it is all edible, but no one eats thegingerbread house. it's been sitting outhere for a few weeks and it will sit outfor another week.

so, it's probably a littlebit dusty after all that time. it's really just to look at. nobody eats it. narrator:and this -- then a follow-up, this is from nelson carr. her math class says,"how many square feet is the gingerbread house?" it's -- let me do aquick calculation. it's about 51 inches acrossby 31 high, by 19 back.

so, i need some helpfrom the math course, from a math teacher there,to figure that out. i would guess it'sabout 18 cubic feet, the whole structure itself. laura dowling:that's good, then. narrator:laura, sandy jones wants to know what your favorite flower is. laura dowling:oh, that's always a hard one too, buti love orchids.

i love all flowers, and reallyit's hard to pick a favorite, because dependinghow you use them, you can changehow they look, and i think they'reall beautiful. i think i prefer strongcolors, bold colors, purples and fuchsia tocreate some really dramatic, beautiful arrangements. narrator:so, you have some things displayed in front of you.

can you speak a little bitabout the -- what you've got? laura dowling:yeah, i wanted to show people a little bit aboutbehind the scenes with some of our special projects this year. one of the decorative items onthe tour is a doorway archway in the east colonnade, andthis started as a concept and design boardmany months ago. so, i can show you how it looks. we put these boards togetherwith a trellis pattern.

it's just simple ribbon andpipe cleaners underneath, and so then we talk about howwe take it from a concept to the reality, andthe next thing we do is print out a digital pattern. and so you can see howthis is a geometric shape, and we printed a lot of these togo on the form around the base. then our carpenters got intothe mix and helped us create patterns for each little piece,and so we had four different lengths of pipe cleaners tocut and place on this pattern.

then it involved months andmonths of volunteer work and the hot gluing tinypieces of pipe cleaner in this pattern to our archway. i think the end resultis just beautiful, and i know you'll be able to seeit on whitehouse.gov/holidays, with some boxwoodthat lines around, but i think the main conceptis we start with the idea, with colors, andthen break it down into this verysystematic process.

so it can all work out andcome together beautifully. narrator:for those of you that are watching at home, use the hashtag #whhangout. we're answering yourquestions on twitter. i'll turn it over, back tolinda herrington elementary. do you have any other questions? teacher:yes, ma'am, we do. female student:what mass measurement scales did you use tobuild the replica?

bill yosses:well, both math, arithmetic, and geometry allcame into play there. so, of course, for therecipe for the cookies, which you can see here, this isthe famous spring roll cookie, which are made withthese wooden molds. you make the cookie doughaccording to the recipe, and so, of course, we're notjust making 10 or 12. we're making 1,200. so, we have to multiply therecipe by many, many times,

and get the right answer. so, that's where arithmeticcomes in, and then geometry, because we're shapingthis fireplace and house, and all the corners have tocome together and meet exactly at the right place. so, we're using geometry in thatcase so that we can come out with a house and fireplacethat look like the real thing. narrator:we have a question from twitter. explorer tech k to 5 wants-- explorer elementary

from south dakota want to knowthe different candies that are used on thegingerbread house. bill yosses:okay, well that's a -- i have some examples here. thisis the spring roll cookie, which i showed earlier. that'sa very traditional cookie. we're being serenaded now byour choir in the grand foyer. so, that's a traditionalcookie from pennsylvania. then the bricks of the fireplaceitself are actual gingerbread. this is a gingerbread cookie.

we use that insideto form the bricks, and the very interesting aspectof the gingerbread house this year are the fdr or franklin delanoroosevelt's tiles. so, these were actual images that franklin roosevelt had commissioned for thelibrary in the white house. then we took the image andwe covered them with sugar. this actually is, theshiny part, is sugar. so, we made tiles out of sugarto go around the hearth

of the white house, becauseall of this refers back to mrs. obama's wonderfultheme of 'gather around' and storytelling. so,actually our fireplace tells a story in itself,both from the images of the spring roll cookie, and for the images that fdr had commissioned about the history of the white house, and of our own country, and washington, d.c. in particular. how about fireside elementary? male student:what's your favorite

dessert to make? bill yosses:my favorite dessert to make would have to besomething with chocolate. i'm really crazy aboutchocolate, chocolate candies, and chocolate chip cookies,and chocolate cake. that's what my favorite is,but i also like all the fresh fruits of the season that we getthroughout from the farmer's markets and from our farmshere in the washington area. that really makes for a greatthing to use for desserts.

narrator:we have a question from mark on twitter. he wants to know ifbo and sunny ever get in trouble messing with the christmas tree or the ornamentsthat are around. bill yosses:that's yours, laura. laura dowling:oh, i think they are such well-behaved dogs, and i have never heard of anyproblems with the decorations. in fact, what's really funis for them to come and walk,

and see their replicasin the book cellars. it's another decorationthat we have, that we do every year withbo in the children's area. this year he's made out of about1,000 yards of looped ribbon, and sunny is joined inthere, and this year they have wagging tails. but it's really fun to seethe real dogs come by and look at their replicas. i think that's alwaysan interesting picture.

bill yosses:sunny did try to eat the fireplace. narrator:i'm sorry, go ahead. bill yosses:but i was close enough that we stopped. shejust got in a few licks. narrator:how about south prairie elementaryfrom grimes, iowa? do you have another question? female student:do you have a secret ingredient?

bill yosses:i didn't catch that one. did we -- narrator:i think, chef, if you have a secret ingredient? bill yosses:oh, a secret ingredient. oh, yes. well, it wouldn't be asecret if i told you, but i will tell you --i will give you this, that during the summer timemrs. obama has a garden

that's on the south groundshere, and that's our secret, although it's an open secret,but we have so many great fruits that grow down there:raspberries, and blueberries, and strawberries; and i loveall the herbs that are there. so, myself and cris comeford,the executive chef in the kitchen, she loves toalso use that secret garden, which has wonderfulthings to eat. and so all summer long we canuse the garden to cook our meals and make our desserts.

narrator:we have another question from twitter, and if you're watching,use the hashtag #whhangout. we're answeringyour questions live. mitch wants to know how muchtime it takes in advance to prepare for holidaysat the white house. laura dowling:well, it's a really good question, and i would say that the planning forthe next year starts right now,

in the moment when all of thedecorations are up. we can see everything. in fact, in the flower shop,we're already starting to create sketches and ideasthat we'll gather in a little book, and then meetwith our colleagues, probably startingaround in february, to toss around ideasand fine tune things. so, the planning really doesn'tget started until the spring or summer, but i would sayit's a yearlong process.

we're always in thechristmas spirit, thinking about ideas and what wecan do for the following year. from twitter. karenwants to know -- she's asking -- herfirst and second graders are wondering, bill,if you've worked for lots of differentpresidents. bill yosses:well, i've worked for two. i've worked for george w. bush and president obama.

let's -- linda herringtonelementary in round rock, do you all haveanother question? teacher:yeah, sure. female student:we have been learning about lines of symmetryin our class. will you use symmetry whencreating your designs? laura dowling:did you hear the -- bill yosses:that was, do we use symmetry -- was that --

narrator:yes, lines of symmetry. yes, sir. lines of symmetry. bill yosses:lines of symmetry in our designs. laura dowling:do you want to try? bill yosses:yeah, i'll take a stab at it. certainly we do, and i'mvery happy to know that you're learningabout that concept. it's so important to have sortof art studies in schools,

and for young people to beginto think about how the world is ordered around them, andhow they can sort of reorder it in a beautiful way. and that's what laura and i do. that's what makes us tick. that's what makes us happy. so, lines of symmetryare very important. it's sort of the way that the white house itselfwas constructed.

the white house was designed bythe irish architect james hoban, along with george washington. so, when you look at theimage of the white house, you see those --the symmetry of the same number ofwindows on each side. you see the northportico with the columns, and that's something that we try to capture in ourgingerbread house. you'll also have toremember that sometimes

you want to adjust the symmetry. (singing) bill yosses:you have to adjust the symmetry, because you don't wantit to be too regular. sometimes it's interesting forthe visual effect to have a broken symmetry, buti'll let laura talk about flowers too in that sense. laura dowling:i think it's such an interesting idea,

and in this classicalspace of the white house the idea of symmetry is veryimportant in design, and so when i'm lookingat flower arrangements, i'm always approaching it fromthe idea and the angle of it. we need a classicallook, but with this idea, this touch ofasymmetry or interest that makes thethings come alive. so, i think you see that tensionat play, or that balance. it's very important tohave balance and

these other concepts of it weuse when we're designing art, such as the floral displays. the balance of symmetry,proportion, line, all of the elements ofart are at play in the designs we use here. bill yosses:and laura is maybe modest, but i will note that she has created a whole newway of decorating flowers by decorating the vase withorganic elements.

so, she kind of plays with thesymmetry of the bouquet and how it plays withthe vase itself. so, there's sometimes a veryfine line between what's organic and real, andwhat is part of the vase. beautifully done. laura dowling:that's -- thank you, bill. that's a great lead in to one ofthe special decorations that we have here on displayat christmas, the red room sugar flower vase,

made by one of ourlocal artists. the vase is completely craftedout of gum paste flowers, and they look so real thatmost people don't know that it's made outof sugar paste. so, when we put the arrangementin of real flowers, you can see this idea, this ideaof balance that goes from the faux, the gumpaste, to the natural, and it's quite a combination. and you should go onto thewebsite and take a look at it.

bill yosses:yeah, you'll see photos of that. so, we like to have littleelements of surprise, and sort of things that arenot so apparent when you first look at them. so, people want to seebehind the first visual, and learn more aboutthe decorations. narrator:we are getting lots of great questions on twitter. we have a question thatjust came in from karen,

who wants to know -- one of oursecond graders is wondering if you use ingredients fromthe white house garden. laura dowling:there is a special hanukah celebration. it was held earlier this month,and i think when we welcome people to the whitehouse it's really for all holidays during the season. bill yosses:absolutely, yeah. it's for everyone, and weinclude many different elements

of all the religions and -- tocelebrate at this time of year, yes. do you all haveanother question? male student:what sort of tools do you use and, for the smaller pieces,did you hand mold them? bill yosses:for -- so, yeah, small pieces. so, we use a lotof different tools. we use sculptural tools tomake some of these images here. we also use these carvings.

these are wooden carvings. some of them are very old that we've pushed thecookie dough into. so, this is probably the toolthat we use the most when we were making thefireplace, and there's a lot of pastry tools that we use, apastry bag, a spatula, all the things youfind in the kitchen. how about you, laura? laura dowling:i think for us our biggest tool

this time of year isthe hot glue gun. bill yosses:right. laura dowling:we ended up using that a lot, clippers, and then sometimes weinvent our own tools. we found that when we wereapplying the ribbon to the bow frame that we neededto make an improvised needle to sew the fir around the chicken wire frame. so, sometimes wehave to be creative, come up with ideas for newtools, but we make it work.

narrator:we have a question on twitter from dover shores elementary. lindsay wants to know, what'sthe president's favorite healthy food to eat? bill yosses:oh, i would have to say that would be broccoli and kale. there's also a lot greatvegetables that we have during the summertime, thetomatillos, tomatoes. oh my gosh, we have over70 vegetables down there,

and so cris comefordand sam kass, the chefs in the kitchen always provide alot of those delicious -- and spinach too of course. that's a very popular itemon the president's table. narrator:another question from twitter. explorer tech wants to know,is the gingerbread hollow, or is it filled with something? bill yosses:the gingerbread? narrator:the gingerbread house.

bill yosses:oh, the house. well, i think it'shard to see from here, but there are actually-- in the rooms, we have made furniture outof chocolate, and gum paste, and marzipan. so, then the light insidecomes from a little dollhouse chandelier, which isthe only thing that's -- we haven't figured out how tomake that edible yet. narrator:south prairie, do you

have another question? female student:yes, we do. what is the best thing aboutworking in the white house? bill yosses:i'll let you go. laura dowling:the best thing, well, definitely thistime of year, it's to see all of the visitors, see the children who come inand enjoy the decorations. we really open up the house toeveryone and it's just a joy

to be here when everyone ishaving such a good time and so delighted by allof the decorations, the gingerbreadhouse, the parties. it really is awonderful time of year. bill yosses:absolutely. we love welcoming you in,even on this method where we can see you on screen. it's really great so see suchinteresting and smart young people, and ithink year-round,

one of the best things is that we have teamwork here, and we work as a team. no personis just off on their own. so, laura and i, we havevery different professions, but we work together. we communicate, and that to meis the best part of working here at the white house, is beingpart of a team that's devoted to serving thepresident and first lady. narrator:well, i think that's a perfect question towrap things up.

do you have anythingelse to add? laura dowling:well, what a great idea to be able to share what we're doing with peoplefrom around the country, and with children,and in classes, and i think this time of yearbill and i have been working for countless hoursover many months to make everythingcome together. so, it's just wonderfulto be able to share it,

and also to havethe ideas posted on whitehouse.gov/holidays. you can see several craftprojects that you can try at home, and so i wouldreally encourage everyone to take a look, take someof the ideas that we've had fun working on here, and try them at home. it's a way for all of usto share in this together. bill yosses:absolutely, i agree, and i think it's a -- what we'redoing today is a good way

of personalizing mrs. obama'stheme of 'gather around.' so, with this new technology, wecan gather around with you and share yourquestions, and share this wonderful moment together. so, thank you for being partof this, and i know i've enjoyed it, and i'm -- laura dowling:yes. bill yosses:-- sure laura has too. laura dowling:thank you so much.

narrator:thanks so much, and as laura mentioned, go to whitehouse.gov/holidaysto learn a lot more, and gather crafts and recipesthat you can recreate at home. follow us on google plus. we host hangouts like this allthe time and we'd love for you to join the next one. thank you, bill and laura, andthank you to all the classrooms and the folks that wereasking questions on twitter.

appreciate it. bill yosses:thank you, students. students:bye, thank you! bill yosses:bye-bye! students:bye! (laughter)