The Only Original Official White House Gift Shop, Est. 1946 in U.S. History

SHIPS NOV 30, 2025

LIMITED

1st in the World

2025

White House Christmas &

All-Faiths Holy Days Ornament

Based on Original Acrylic Paintings with Artist's Own Python Coded Enhancements

An Original Art Commemorative Work by
Anthony Fileccia Giannini
Symbolist Artist–Historian
The White House Gift Shop®, Est. 1946

Description

A luminous, limited-edition tree ornament honoring America’s first all-faiths White House Christmas & Holy Days celebration. My 2025 medallion-ornament gathers the cross, crescent, Star of David, menorah, Om, dharma wheel, khanda, and the Kwanzaa kinara into a single gold-wreathed circle, an illuminated tribute to the nation’s promise of freedom of belief (and the freedom not to believe). Each ornament is finished with a satin-gold cap and ribbon, presented in a keepsake archival box with my hand-signed Certificate of Authenticity.


Artist's-Historian Notes for Collectors & Gift Giving

I designed this ornament as a winter aureole, a ring of light lifted to the bough, because the circle is the oldest American sentence about liberty. Within the circle stands the People’s House in snow and starlight; within the laurel and beadwork, the symbols of our many traditions shine without hierarchy: the cross, crescent, Star of David, menorah, Om, dharma wheel, khanda, and the seven candles of Kwanzaa. They do not blur into sameness. They answer one another—each a facet of the republic’s conscience.

The year 2025 asks us to hold fast to that conscience. Around the world, fragile truces and painstaking diplomatic steps invite us to be guardians of possibility. This ornament does not pronounce a verdict; it keeps a vigil. It is meant to hang where families gather, reminding us that the United States is at its best when we protect every house of worship and every private hearth, when we practice the difficult civic art of embracing difference and defending dignity.

The gold border is a wreath of honor; the beaded edge, a constellation of small glints; the hanger and bow, a modest ceremony of lifting. I have not altered a single element within the inner art; I have only framed it so the message is unmistakable: many lights, one circle; many consciences, one country.

Art & Design Symbol Key (appearing inside the inner circle)

• Cross (Christianity) — Hope, charity, and the many Christian communities that helped build the American experiment.

• Star of David & Menorah (Judaism) — Identity and dedication; the right to worship in freedom, a promise cherished by American Jewry since the nation’s founding.

• Crescent (Islam) — Faith, scholarship, service; the American story of Muslims from the earliest enslaved Africans to today’s thriving communities.

• Om (Hinduism) — The primordial syllable; the sound of being that reminds us of contemplation and compassion.

• Dharma Wheel (Buddhism) — The turning toward wisdom and liberation that has enriched our civic and contemplative life.

• Khanda (Sikhism) — Oneness, courage, and service; the Sikh tradition’s long witness to equality and duty.

• Kinara (Kwanzaa) — The Nguzo Saba—unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith—principles that illuminate communities across our nation.

• Stars, Snowflakes, Laurel, Anchor & Candle — The night sky of shared citizenship; every person distinct and necessary; civic honor; the anchor of hope; a single small light that refuses the dark.

Key Features

• All-Faiths Design: Inclusive iconography honoring America’s breadth of belief and good-faith nonbelief.

• Museum-grade Printing: High-resolution, color-true art preserved under a protective finish.

• Sculpted Trim: Satin-gold beaded outer edge with evergreen laurel wreath; centered gold hanger cap and ribbon bow for immediate display.

• Archival Presentation: Each ornament ships in a White House Gift Shop keepsake box with foam cradle and my hand-signed & numbered Certificate of Authenticity.

• Limited & Scarce: Edition strictly limited fnever reminted ensuring long-term collectible significance.

Specifications

• Artist: A. F. Giannini (White House Gift Shop® Artist–Historian)

• Edition Year: 2025

• Format: Circular tree ornament with integrated gold hanger cap and ribbon bow

• Diameter: 3.25 in (82.5 mm) face (ornament overall height ~4.25 in with cap & bow)

• Finish & Trim: Satin gold beaded ring; laurel-wreath detailing; cardinal-red ribbon with gold edge

• Artwork: Original art by A. F. Giannini, high-resolution, full-color archival print beneath protective clear coat (art elements unchanged from approved master)

• Reverse: White House Gift Shop® hallmark and year; edition number

• Packaging: Archival presentation box with gold-foil seal; descriptive insert & Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist

• Care: Wipe gently with soft, dry cloth; ornament display stand optional

• Made in USA

What’s Included

1. 2025 All-Faiths White House Christmas & Holy Days Ornament with 5" x 7" Artist's Print

2. Hand-signed & numbered Certificate of Authenticity (COA)

3. Archival presentation box with protective insert

4. Artist’s introductory essay card (condensed edition)

The 2025 White House Christmas and Holy Days

Ornament and Artifact in One Bright Sentence

This 2025 White House Christmas & Holy Days ornament is my miniature republic: a circle of many faiths and good-faith nonbelief, crowned with a hanger of hope, ringed by laurel and light, proclaiming that America’s strength has always been the civic art of letting consciences differ and still clasp hands, especially in years when peace is tender and must be tended.

If you hold it to a lamp, you will see what I saw while painting: the menorah’s steadfast eight; the kinara’s seven; the star that guided shepherds; the crescent that keeps the calendar of the night; the wheel that turns; the Om that hums beneath all syllables; the khanda that cleaves falsehood from truth. In that glow they do not erase one another. They answer one another—like neighbors who have learned, at last, to bring their own songs to the same porch and share the winter bread.

—Anthony F. Giannini
Artist–Historian, White House Gift Shop, Est. 1946

* * *

The First All-Faiths White House Christmas & Holy Days Ornament (2025)

A Maker’s Preface in Praise of America’s Freedom to Believe and to Disagree

I composed this ornament first as painted art, as an illuminated round, an aureole of winter light, because the circle is the oldest promise we have. It is the covenant’s shape, the ring of union, the wreath of welcome; it is Earth herself in her winter orbit around a faithful sun. In the center stands the familiar figure before the White House, not as an idol but as a herald standing in snowfall, beneath a sky stippled with stars, witness to a season that, in our country, refuses to belong to only one household of faith.

Around that center I braided a border of symbols. I did not move a single element of the original painting; I only framed it as a tree-borne medallion, the way a nation might frame its best aspirations and lift them, carefully, into the light. The frame says what the Republic has tried, imperfectly and bravely, to say since the First Amendment declared that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

This is an ornament for a plural people. It is also, in this fragile year of 2025, a prayer for peace. I inscribed “Holiday Season 2025” mindful of the hard-won, tentative cease-fire and the twenty-point roadmap that American mediation helped coax into being between Israel and Hamas, a plan publicly embraced by the White House this autumn and described by independent analysts as a promising but contested path toward an end to the Gaza war. In the same weeks, Washington signaled hopes to widen the circle of recognition known as the Abraham Accords, inviting more nations including, perhaps, Saudi Arabia into a broader architecture of coexistence.

The ornament gathers the lights that Americans kindle in December: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the enduring emblems of living faiths that have taken root here across centuries. They are not arranged in hierarchy but in constellation, each star answering another. Below is my iconographic key, offered as a curator’s wall text and a citizen’s testimony.

Iconographic Key: Symbols, Traditions, and American Footprints

The Cross (Christianity)
The cross marks the faith of most Americans, descending from Puritan meetinghouses, Black praise houses, Catholic cathedrals, storefront Pentecostal sanctuaries, and Orthodox domes. Our Constitution refuses an official church and protects free exercise, a twin guardrail that lets churches flourish without a state’s coercive hand.

The Star of David & Menorah (Judaism)
The six-pointed star of Jewish identity shines beside the Hanukkah menorah: flame of dedication and religious liberty since the Maccabees. In the United States, Judaism’s oldest synagogue building is Touro Synagogue in Newport, dedicated in 1763; in 1790, President George Washington wrote to its Hebrew Congregation, promising a nation that “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

The Crescent (Islam)
The crescent honors American Muslims whose story reaches back to enslaved West Africans and, later, immigrant communities that built the nation’s first purpose-built mosques in the early 20th century, among them the Highland Park mosque (1921) and the enduring “Mother Mosque of America,” completed in Cedar Rapids in 1934.

Om (Hinduism)
The Om, seed-syllable of divine sound, entered the American ear most famously when Swami Vivekananda addressed the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, a watershed for Hindu thought in the West. His salutation: “Sisters and Brothers of America” is still remembered for its embrace.

Dharma Wheel (Buddhism)
The dharmachakra recalls the turning of the Wheel of Teachings. Buddhism’s American presence began with Chinese immigrants who raised the first Buddhist temple in San Francisco in 1853, later joined by Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Thai, and American-born practitioners; the tradition’s plural growth is now woven into our civic and contemplative life.

Khanda (Sikhism)
The twin-edged khanda, flanked by the kirpans and encircled by the chakkar, symbolizes the Sikh commitment to oneness, courage, and seva (selfless service). Sikhs planted deep roots here over a century ago; the first gurdwara in the United States opened in Stockton, California, in 1912.

Kinara with Seven Candles (Kwanzaa)
Though not a religion but a cultural holiday, Kwanzaa’s kinara honors the Nguzo Saba—unity, self-determination, collective work, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith—values that have enriched American civic life since the celebration’s creation in 1966 by Maulana Karenga.

Laurel & Evergreen
The laurel ring recalls classical emblems of victory transfigured into civic honor; the evergreen, pine cones and boughs, signifies endurance through winter, the perennial life of communities that refuse despair.

Stars & Snowflakes, Candle & Anchor
The star belongs to every night watcher, believer or seeker or skeptic; the snowflake is the republic’s quiet arithmetic—each one singular, all of them together a landscape. The candle is the modest technology of hope. The anchor, an ancient Christian sign of hope (Hebrews 6:19) and a token of the American sailor, steadies the whole.

A Republic of Conscience

When I drafted this design, I returned again to Washington’s letter to Newport’s Jews. He wrote not merely of tolerance, tolerance can be revoked by the powerful, but of immunity, of a government that “gives to bigotry no sanction,” that secures the inborn right to worship God according to conscience—or not to worship at all. The First Amendment codified that insight. Our ornament does not erase difference; it proclaims that difference can be ringed in gold and lifted to the same green bough.

To place a Christian cross and a Star of David within a single aureole is not to melt them into sameness; it is to say that my country contains both, protects both, and is impoverished without either. To set a crescent, an Om, a dharma wheel, and a khanda among the winter lights is to remember how these traditions arrived, sometimes as refugees from tyranny, sometimes as workers, scholars, soldiers, or students, and how they built temples, mosques, gurdwaras, and community centers that are now as American as our post office and our town green. The Mother Mosque’s wooden frame in Iowa, the Stockton gurdwara’s immigrant courage, the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette with its lacework of stone—all are chapters in the long scroll of American welcome.

Peace, However Fragile

In this season, the word “peace” cannot be spoken lightly. The 2025 cease-fire and the Trump Administration’s twenty-point Gaza peace roadmap have opened a narrow door. The Guardian recorded Israel’s cabinet vote to approve the cease-fire’s first phase; the Council on Foreign Relations has called the plan a difficult but real framework whose success depends on hard choices by all parties; the administration’s own declaration frames it as a commitment to “peace, security, stability, and opportunity” for Israelis and Palestinians alike. At the same time, the world has watched the fragility of the truce: exchanges of remains, halting steps, and calls for international guarantees—as leaders talk of expanding regional recognition through the Accords.