Free Republic

President Biden and his family are expected to attend Nantucket’s annual Christmas tree lighting festival Friday after celebrating Thanksgiving at a billionaire pal’s secluded island retreat. The event isn’t on Biden’s public schedule, but first lady Jill Biden told Coast Guard members Thursday that they would attend — shortly after a Nantucket man gave Biden’s motorcade a one-finger salute on Thanksgiving.

A caffeinated gang of annoying white hipsters in Seattle did their level best to ruin Christmas this year by surrounding the city’s annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, chanting and making a bunch of little kids cry. The young, well-heeled, largely white crowd of demonstrators was protesting in response to Monday’s announcement that a grand jury in Missouri had refused to indict white police officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black male, on Aug. 9. Friday’s incident in Seattle occurred at Westlake Mall, according to local NBC affiliate KING-TV. Westlake Mall is some 2,119 miles away from Ferguson, Mo.,...

Even the annual lighting of Wisconsin's Christmas tree today couldn't escape politics. Protesters turned their backs as Gov. Scott Walker lit the tree and one Democratic state senator complained about the timing of the ceremony. Protesters turned their backs as Gov. Scott Walker lit the tree and one Democratic state senator complained about the timing of the ceremony. Sen. Bob Jauch of Poplar said Walker purposefully held the lighting in the morning because he was afraid protesters would disrupt a noontime event. A couple dozen protesters, many of them holding “Recall Walker” signs, did not interrupt the governor or cause...

Third Brigade Combat Team Soldiers waved Chemlights while singing Christmas carols during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, Dec. 8, at Forward Operating Base Hammer. Photo by Spc. Ben Hutto, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs. FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — Soldiers of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT) attended a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, Dec. 8, at Forward Operating Base Hammer to welcome a Christmas season spent with their Army family. “I enjoyed the ceremony. It was very motivating and very uplifting,” said Staff. Sgt. Derrick Mears, from Richmond, Va., a communications non-commissioned officer in Headquarters...

Today the President discussed Housing in the Roosevelt Room and took place in the annual Lighting of the National Christmas Tree and the Pageant of Peace on The Ellipse near the White House in Washington. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended a Transatlantic working dinner held at the Egmont Palace in Brussels. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates left Iraq and travelled to Bahrain where he attended a meeting with the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Al-Khalifa and visited US troops on the USS Vicksburg. The First lady is given a tour of the exhibit: "The Presidential Dish: Mrs. Woodrow Wilson...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 2005 – President Bush remembered America's deployed servicemembers who he said are "serving the cause of peace" during the Dec. 1 Christmas Pageant of Peace and lighting of the national Christmas tree here. "We ask for God to watch over our men and women in uniform who are serving overseas," Bush said during the ceremony on the Ellipse. "Their families miss them, hold a seat open for them and pray for their safe return." America's men and women stand for freedom and serve the cause of peace, he said. "Many of them are serving in distant lands...

The official Christmas season of giving and family started for Mike Luczko long before President Bush lighted the towering Colorado blue spruce yesterday behind the White House. Mr. Luczko got in line for tickets at 4 a.m. one day last month so his wife, Cheryl, and their two young children could sing with carolers, watch the 2005 Christmas Pageant of Peace and join in all the activities associated with the annual lighting of the National Christmas Tree. "This represent the nation looking to start its holiday," said Mrs. Luczko, 39, standing with her children -- Megan, 2, and Evan, 5....

Ten months from now he's supposed to preside over the re-nomination of President Bush at the Republican National Convention at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. But that didn't stop "Republican" New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg from playing sidekick to notorious Bush-basher Martin Sheen for the city's celebrated Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center last night. Sheen, a notorious critic of Bush's war policy in Iraq, was supposedly on hand to help turn the ceremony into a what he described as a tribute to "all our servicemen stationed in faraway places." But the star of NBC's "West Wing" has marched and...