The gingerbread model of the White House, which was constructed and put in the State Dining Room, is made of 150 pounds of gingerbread, 100 pounds of bread dough, 20 pounds of gum paste, 20 pounds of icing and 20 pounds of sculpted sugar pieces.
The White House Christmas decorations are seen in the North Portico during a press preview Nov. 29 in Washington, D.C. TNS
Ninety-two people from around the country traveled to Washington, D.C., to deck the halls at the White House.
Cody Sprunger, a senior environmental design major, was one of them.
Sprunger frequently watched the HGTV White House Christmas special, so he did some research and filled out the application to be a decorator back in June. He received confirmation in October that he was chosen and flew to D.C. on Thanksgiving.
Friday and Saturday were spent in an offsite warehouse owned by the National Parks Service, where all the decorations from past years are kept.
“We were doing all of the prep work: attaching wire to ornaments and gluing and cutting and glittering," Sprunger said. "Basically any craft thing you can ever imagine.”
Sprunger was assigned to the State Dining Room with eight other volunteers and decorated Sunday and Monday.
On Nov. 28, Sprunger got the opportunity to attend a volunteer reception, where he met and shook hands with Michelle Obama.
“This year, the theme was the gift of the holidays, [so] the State Dining Room was the gift of family,” Sprunger said. “It just focused on the different gifts of the holidays that are often taken for granted.”
The White House wanted the State Dining Room to be whimsical, so it features a lot of candy, LEGOs and cookie-themed ornaments.
“Every year, the White House pastry chef will make a model of the White House out of gingerbread … [the State Dining Room] is also the room where that is kept.”
This year's gingerbread house was made 150 pounds of gingerbread, 100 pounds of bread dough, 20 pounds of gum paste, 20 pounds of icing and 20 pounds of sculpted sugar pieces, according to the White House website.
The volunteers came from 33 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and Sprunger only met one other person from Indiana. He thinks meeting the other volunteers was one of his favorite parts of the experience, aside from the simple fact of just being there.
“It was a lot of fun … meeting all of the really fantastic people cause they’re kinda in the same position as you — a lot of them who had never even been to the White House before and were just so excited to be there,” Sprunger said. “I didn’t meet an unfriendly person, everyone was so nice.”
One volunteer, a woman named Margaret Ritchie from Iowa, became a grandma figure to Sprunger and another college-aged student from Texas during their time in DC.
Ritchie loved being the grandma of the group and was right at home in the role having seven grandchildren of her own.
"It was a joy to work with such goal-oriented, forward-looking young adults, Ritchie said. "They give someone my age the reassurance that our future is secure with these young people becoming our next generation of leaders. They all had such a positive attitude and great plans for their future. They really helped each day fly by."
Though Ritchie had to part with her unofficial grandchildren, she doesn't plan on losing touch with them any time soon.
“At the end, [Ritchie] said 'I wanna stay in touch with you guys, I wanna know when you guys graduate and everything,'” Sprunger said.
When he first got to the White House, Sprunger was expecting a guided tour, but it ended up being a do-it-yourself tour where he was allowed to walk around freely on the ground and first floors.
After all of the decorating, he was able to see all of the different rooms, newly adorned with holiday decorations.
“Seeing the whole transformation from where it started and then where it ended, I don’t know how we were all able to do it in two days, but we did,” Sprunger said.
This was Sprunger’s first visit to the White House. With a minor in historic preservation, Sprunger said the White House is “the building” and he is kind of obsessed with it.
Through this experience, he was able to see a lot of things that people on the regular tour don’t get to.
“Just being in the house, because it’s the symbol of not only Washington, D.C., but [also] the American government and the president’s family and everything ... just having the opportunity to work one-on-one with the White House staff and with all these different people just to kind of transform that space, that means so much to people,” Sprunger said.
LEGO designed and built 56 houses to represent the 50 states and six territories for the State Dining Room, which is where state dinners and cocktail parties are held.
The houses were included on shelves that were built into the Christmas trees, and each house has architectural details and symbols that represented that state.
Indiana’s has a race car to represent the Indianapolis 500.
“The people from LEGO were like, if you see your state and it’s not in a place that you want it, tell us and we’ll move it. So I had them move [Indiana’s house] a little closer to the center,” Sprunger said.
The official White House Holiday Tour book can be found on the White House website. The book includes history, recipes and a look at what's included in each room.
HGTV was also there, filming interviews and other footage for the annual Christmas special that will air Dec. 11.
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