The Official 2025 White House Christmas Ornament is built around a milestone that shaped American diplomacy: the 150th anniversary of White House State Dinners. For collectors — including many military families — the annual release doubles as a tradition with purpose, helping the White House Historical Association fund preservation and history education.
This annual tradition isn’t just a decorative holiday release. It’s one of the most visible ways the White House Historical Association (WHHA) raises money to preserve White House history and teach it to the public.
At a Glance:
- Theme: 150 years of White House State Dinners
- First modern State Dinner: 1875 (Ulysses S. Grant)
- Material: Brass with 24k gold finish and enamel
- Size: 3" diameter
- Design: Reagan State China (front) + Clinton gold-rimmed plate (back)
- Program began: 1981
For longtime collectors, 2025 stands out as a rare theme-year entry — a milestone ornament that breaks from the usual single-administration focus.
“It’s a real privilege,” WHHA President Stewart McLaurin told Military.com, explaining how the ornament program helps keep the White House’s stories accessible beyond Washington. The annual release has become a family ritual for millions of Americans, he said, with collectors unpacking ornaments each year and retelling the historical moments attached to each design.
The series began in 1981 under First Lady Nancy Reagan and has been produced ever since by a veteran-founded small business in Lincoln, Rhode Island — a partnership McLaurin stressed is central to the program’s identity as much as its longevity. In his view, the ornaments work because they sit at an intersection that Military.com readers understand: tradition, service, civic memory, and the quiet pride of craftsmanship that lasts.
What the White House Historical Association Is — and How the Ornament Funds Its Work
McLaurin describes the WHHA as a private, nonpartisan nonprofit rooted in First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s push to preserve the White House and its history. The association’s mission has two major arms: supporting the upkeep of the historic state rooms and funding education about the people who have lived and worked in the Executive Mansion.
That preservation work is supported by non-taxpayer funding, he said — a point that tends to surprise casual readers who assume White House restoration is entirely federally financed. The WHHA also publishes books and a quarterly magazine, hosts public programming, builds teacher resources, and recently opened a large education center at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue designed to tell the White House story through both architecture and the lives shaped inside it.
The ornament program, McLaurin said, is one of the most important engines making that work possible.
“These beautiful hand-made, American-made ornaments have been the primary funding mechanism for all of that education work,” he said, emphasizing that the program’s reach extends far beyond collectors in Washington.
Why the 2025 White House Ornament Focuses on State Dinners
Most years, the WHHA ornaments spotlight a different administration, creating a chronological collection that stretches back to the earliest presidencies. But milestone anniversaries sometimes reshape the theme — and 2025 is one of those years.
McLaurin said this year’s release honors the legacy of formal White House entertaining that began with President Ulysses S. Grant, who hosted the first modern State Dinner for the King of Hawaii in 1875. The anniversary focus allows the ornament’s design to celebrate a broader idea: the long arc of social and culinary diplomacy, and the carefully choreographed symbolism the White House uses when hosting world leaders.
It’s also a theme that quietly links civilian tradition to military perspective. For service members who’ve watched geopolitical relationships shift during deployments or overseas postings, state visits and formal diplomacy are the softer, more visible front of a national security story that often plays out behind the scenes.
2025 White House Christmas Ornament Design Details
The 2025 ornament isn’t just commemorative—it’s built like a keepsake: a 3-inch brass piece finished with 24-karat gold and enamel detailing. It spotlights two still-in-use icons of White House entertaining, pairing the Reagan State China plate on the front with the Clinton gold-rimmed plate on the back. Packaged with a keepsake box and an educational booklet, it’s designed to function as both a collector’s item and a miniature history lesson.
McLaurin noted that the Reagan State China service was originally funded through a private donation facilitated by the WHHA. In contrast, the Clinton commemorative service was created as the White House prepared to mark its 200th anniversary. Both services remain part of the modern rotation for State and Official Dinners.
Surrounding the plates, holly and snowflakes frame the design with seasonal symbolism — the kind of detail that helps the ornament work both as a collector’s item and a piece of holiday decor with a story.
Why Military Families Connect With White House Ornaments
Asked whether the WHHA sees strong resonance with military audiences, McLaurin didn’t hesitate. Every year, he said, the association receives photos and messages from collectors around the world, including service members and military spouses who have woven the ornaments into their own holiday rituals.
Some families have been collecting since 1981. Others build “mini-trees” dedicated entirely to White House ornaments. And in some of the most poignant messages, McLaurin said, the ornaments show up as a small anchor of continuity for families navigating difficult seasons.
“When we get that from a military family who may have a deployed spouse, and they’re putting up their tree at home without that spouse… It’s so meaningful to us,” he said.
That emotional throughline is part of what keeps the program relevant beyond the D.C. orbit: the ornaments aren’t marketed as disposable holiday items. They’re pitched — and often treated — as lasting heirlooms.
A Tradition That Doesn’t Disappear After December
Another detail that helps the program stand out in a crowded holiday marketplace is its unusual long-tail availability. Unlike most seasonal collectibles, WHHA ornaments don’t vanish at the end of the year.
McLaurin said the association continues to sell ornaments going back to the very first 1981 release. That means a collector can start a set from scratch, add missing years, or shop for a specific moment tied to personal history — a birth year, a wedding year, a retirement, or a meaningful family milestone.
“They’re wonderful collectibles,” he said, “but they’re also wonderful family assets, family heirlooms that are handed down from generation to generation.”
For readers who value tradition and legacy — two concepts that tend to resonate strongly in military households — that framing may be the clearest explanation for why the series has endured for more than four decades.
The Bigger Picture Behind a Small Ornament
In a year when the 2025 ornament honors State Dinners and the symbolism of peaceful global engagement, the WHHA’s broader framing feels especially timely. The organization isn’t just selling a holiday collectible. It’s selling a way to keep American civic memory tangible — something you can hold, hang, and pass down.
And for Military.com readers, there’s an additional layer worth underscoring: this iconic White House tradition is tied to a veteran-founded manufacturer that has helped shape and sustain the program since its beginning. That marriage of history and service is part of what makes the ornament story feel less like a lifestyle item and more like a small, annual act of national storytelling.
The 2025 ornament is a small object carrying a big story: 150 years of White House diplomacy, a nonprofit mission funded without taxpayer dollars, and a veteran-founded manufacturing partnership that’s helped keep the tradition alive since 1981. For collectors and military families alike, it’s less a seasonal trinket than a yearly ritual—one that turns history into something you can hold onto.
You can order WHHA's Official White House Christmas Ornament here.
