Subscribe to get 40 exclusive photos And receive a monthly newsletter with our best high quality images.1 × Buy Photo At the first party of the Obamas’ last White House holiday season, Michelle Obama got a little emotional. As military families sat on gold ballroom chairs in the White House’s East Room, the first lady talked about how proud she was to “open this house to as many people from as many backgrounds as possible.” She mentioned that inviting military families to be first to see the decorations was one of her favorite holiday traditions. She began thanking the ushers, florists, carpenters, chefs and calligraphers that make all the magic happen. Then her voice cracked. “So before I get choked up,” she said. “Let me officially kick off our final White House holiday season.” This year’s decorations have the theme “The Gift of the Holidays.” A giant red gift package, serving as a sort of outdoor selfie station, proclaims the theme just before the door to the East Visitor Entrance Hall.

The scent of the holidays is everywhere, from a Cookie Crumble candle in the security guard station to the roasting meats in the outdoor kitchen. For the media preview, volunteers were stationed in the White House public rooms. Patricia Ochan, a military spouse from Arlington, spoke about the 19-foot Blue Room tree, a Douglas fir from Pennsylvania that she helped decorate. The preamble to the Constitution can be read on the tree’s garland, and ornaments honor military service members. “The most exciting part, honestly, was doing one for the military families,” Ochan said. “I know what it feels like not to have your loved one with you home for the holiday. So I put my whole heart into this.” As always, the gingerbread White House has a place of honor in the State Dining Room, with 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. Among the new decorative elements are the gingerbread-style Lego houses in the State Dining Room, representing 56 states and territories and made from more than 200,000 of the plastic pieces.

This year’s decorations are 90 percent repurposed and 10 percent new. Last year’s “snowpeople,” who were displayed outside in 2015, are now safe and warm indoors in the Ground Floor Corridor. One new holiday tree was not on view to the press: a tree entirely made of garden hoses on display at the White House Kitchen Garden. exterior house painting pricesMeanwhile as members of the media were served hot cider and holiday cookies outdoors before the military families arrived, a last-minute tree tagged “Yellow Oval Room” was wrapped in canvas and carefully carried in the front door of the White House, destined no doubt for a glamorous holiday life in the Obamas’ private quarters. which is the best exterior paintAfter her remarks in the East Room, Michelle Obama joined service members’ children in the State Dining Room, making personalized felt stockings and decorating salt dough ornaments. cheap christmas craft kits

She introduced Bo and Sunny, sitting on the floor in her full-skirted brocade party dress as the kids petted the dogs, her metallic pumps sparkling as cameras clicked. Then with a wave and a smile, she was gone. “All right, guys,” she said, “See you later.” More from The Washington Post: The rules for setting your holiday table (and why they matter) Holiday Gift Guide: Editors and tastemakers offer all the ideas you’ll need this season The president-elect traditionally stays here before inauguration. Take a look inside. Obama legacy includes a new look for White House’s State Dining RoomGet into the Yuletide Spirit this Christmas with our huge selection of Indoor and Outdoor decorations that will transform your home into a Winter Wonderland. You can spread the cheer by a simple decoration or by creating lovely holiday displays indoor and outdoors. You can set a theme and make your Christmas décor unique to you and your loved ones. American Sale offers a huge selection of Christmas items that are sure to help you celebrate your holiday in style.

Take advantage of great prices and easy set-up features from our wide selection of artificial Christmas trees. Choose from pre-lit, non-lit, fiber optic, dual color and table top or foyer trees. Special tree features include PowerConnect, Quick Set, Instant Lite, and Ready To Light.  Decorating for the Christmas holiday has never been easier! We offer a huge selection of Christmas lighting that will certainly add that special festive touch to the inside or outside of your home. Our LED lights are Energy Efficient, and our Battery-Operated lights offer you the convenience to decorate without messy cords. Please don't forget to purchase our handy electrical supplies to keep your Holiday displays shining bright. Our popular Projection Lighting offers an instant, effective and affordable way to light up your home and landscaping. With projected lights and designs it is a simple task to make the Holiday bright. Our large selection of Lemax Villages are a hit with all our Lemax Collector's and first time buyers.

Our Lemax Collectibles are sure to brighten up the Holiday Season.So, "Deck The Halls" with a little help from American Sale - Your #1 Holiday Store!Christmas and holiday parties mean getting lots of family and friends together. And getting the family together usually means lots and lots of pictures! Here’s some of HTG’s favorite tips for better photos this holiday. You might use a tiny digital camera or a honkin’ huge digital single lens reflex. It doesn’t matter, because the principals of photography are pretty similar regardless of the equipment you’re using. With these few tips, you can improve your family photos, and have the perfect Christmas pics that your whole family begs for a copy of. Before people start showing up, take a few shots of the ambient light in the room. If you use manual settings, this is especially useful, because you can figure out the best aperture, ISO, and shutter speed settings for your images before your family comes around. Although light through the windows will probably change after several hours, electric lights won’t fluctuate.

Given this, you should be able to stay within a range of settings, provided you stay indoors and in similar light settings. “Everybody line up on the couch. Posed pictures are unnatural and don’t really do a lot except show your family pretending to smile. You probably won’t be able to avoid taking at least one posed picture like this at every family gathering, but it doesn’t really represent the event very well. Approach family photography like a photojournalist. There’s an important event happening, and you’re trying to capture it, as it happens. Is the baby laughing? Did grandpa fall asleep? Did dad sneak outside to smoke, and got caught by mom? It can be far richer and more enjoyable when you look back on these pictures to see people as they were, doing their own thing. When you pose pictures, you’re only capturing the fact that they were there, smiling rigidly. Rule one is photography is about capturing light. How is the room you’re in lit? Is it dim or dark?

Is bright light coming in from the windows? Is there warm light coming from the light bulbs, lamps, or Christmas ornaments? Lighting is probably the single most important part of good pictures and can make or break them. Pay attention to the colors present in the room and use different settings to try and capture them. At the very least, try to keep your subjects from being ruined by backlighting or flashed brightly in front of a black shadow background. Manual ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed settings are not complicated if you learn a little bit about the elements of exposure. There’s no shame in using automatic settings; they’re quite useful in situations where light, people, and environment change rapidly. However, there simply are kinds of pictures that an automatic setting doesn’t have the artistic nuance for. Especially if you’re trying to capture warm, soft, glowing light from Christmas decorations and low light environments, manual settings are sometimes the only way to go.

Some cameras don’t have an “M” for Manual setting. These might have a “P” for Progam mode. Familiarize yourself with the camera and play around with it, shooting test shots before the big Christmas party. Don’t afraid to experiment and mess up a few dozen shots! And if manual continues to be a huge struggle, the auto setting is only a few clicks away. Bracketing is an important word in the Photographer’s vocabulary. Since digital photography has made taking a gazillion pictures so cheap, take as many as you can. Remember, that moment will never happen again, so taking the same picture twenty times and picking the best image is better than taking it once and wishing you had a better shot. Remember when we talked about not posing your family? The photojournalist metaphor still applies. When you’re taking pictures, take them with the end result in mind. A good photo should tell a story, even if it’s a little one, and you should think about the story you’re telling when you take the shot.

What are the people in your pictures doing? Are they chopping vegetables, unwrapping presents, watching TV, or getting blasted on eggnog? People are one of the most powerful subjects to photograph because we immediately can feel empathy for them and relate to what they’re doing. Capture facial expressions and events, actions, happiness, tears and laughter. When you tell a story with your pictures, you make it easier to return to that moment again, even if you aren’t a skilled photographer. You might not be an artist, but photography is a visual art form. Again, you have to begin with the end in mind; think visually when you shoot. Read up on the golden mean and the rule of thirds for some insight on how to make your shots look more interesting.Shoot pictures only of the subjects you want in your final shot. Don’t stand across the room and get lots of details in the shot that don’t help it. When you take pictures of the kids, take a knee and get down on their level, so that all of your shots aren’t of the top of their head.

And don’t always put your subject dead in the center of the shot because it gets boring, particularly when you’re showing off your pictures later. When you bracket, traditionally, you take the same shot with multiple aperture or shutter speed settings to make sure you expose properly. With digital cameras, you have a good idea immediately if you’ve exposed your image well or not, so try bracketing your image with and without flashing, especially if you’re using the automatic setting. It doesn’t lend itself well to shooting like a photojournalist, but using a tripod will allow you to use slow shutter speeds to capture light of dim environments. Christmas trees and low light can look quite beautiful with long exposures, so if you’re going to pose your family, make use of the fact that they’re sitting still for so long and set up that tripod! The lower the ISO, the less grain you’ll get in your low light shots. If you’re going to have a lot of these, using an ISO of 200, 400 or 800 is better for graininess than 1600 or higher.

You may have to compensate for lower ISO settings by using longer exposures and a tripod, but you’ll be able to keep your images from being grainy. We said it earlier: that moment is special… and you’ll never be able to go back to it. If your shots aren’t exposed perfectly, Photoshop, Photoshop elements, or GIMP can give you the tools to make them better. You might take a great composition of a cute moment, but find that the exposure settings are not perfect, or that the white balance is a little off. While you should hope to expose pictures perfectly every time, the fact is this is not likely, particularly if you’re picky about your images. (Like your author. :p ) Here are our favorite HTG articles on using photoshop to improve your photographs: Image Credits: Photos by Murilo Cardoso, zolakoma, Ewen Roberts, Jeffrey Smith, Phil Campbell, Rebecca Peplinski, marcp_dmoz, KungFuStu, Greg Wagoner, Phong Nguyen, Brad Trump Photography, Deana, Duane Schoon, Liam Burke, and Kevin Dooley, all via Flickr, available under Creative Commons.