NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, opened their final holiday season at the White House on Monday with the annual pardon of turkeys and the arrival of the Christmas tree before hosting a “Friendsgiving” for members of the U.S. Coast Guard in New York City organized and their families.
“Simply put, we owe you. We owe your families,” Biden said at U.S. Coast Guard Sector New York on Staten Island. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The meal was part of the first lady’s Joining Forces initiative to support military families. “From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your service and your sacrifice,” she said before the president spoke.
Then both tied murky aprons with the presidential seal around their gala attire and joined the food line, where they served a side of roasted Brussels sprouts. Celebrity chef Robert Irvine helped prepare the menu, which included turkey, ham, sides and desserts.
Earlier, at the White House, Biden granted the conventional reprieve to turkeys Peach and Blossom, who will bypass the Thanksgiving table and live out their days in southern Minnesota.
Under radiant skies, he greeted 2,500 guests on the South Lawn, joking about the fate of birds and sounding wistful about the approaching end of his half-century in Washington power circles.
“It was the honor of my life. I am forever grateful,” Biden said of his single term as president. The reins of power will be handed over on Jan. 20 to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, the man Biden defeated four years ago and who struggled again until concerns about his age and viability pressured him out of the race to get out. Biden is 82.
Biden enjoyed the brief ceremony with the pardoned turkeys, which were named after the official flower of his home state of Delaware.
“The peach pie in my state is one of my favorites,” he said during his remarks, which were occasionally punctuated by Peach devouring on a table to Biden’s right. “Peach makes a last-minute plea deal,” Biden once said.
Biden introduced Peach as a bird who “lives by the motto: ‘Keep calm and devour.'” Blossom, the president said, has a different motto: “No fowl game.” Just Minnesota stunning.”
Peach and Blossom came from John Zimmerman’s farm near the town of Northfield in southern Minnesota. Zimmerman, who has raised about 4 million turkeys, is president of the National Turkey Federation, which has given Thanksgiving turkeys to U.S. presidents since the Truman administration after World War II. However, President Harry Truman preferred to eat the birds. Official pardon ceremonies only became an annual White House tradition under the administration of President George H. W. Bush in 1989.
With their presidential reprieve, Peach and Blossom will spend their days at Farmamerica, an agricultural interpretive center near Waseca in southern Minnesota. The center’s goal is to promote agriculture and educate future farmers and others about agriculture in America.
The First Lady also received the official White House Christmas tree, which will be decorated and displayed in the Blue Room. The 18.5-foot (5.64-meter) Fraser fir came from a farm in an area of western North Carolina recently devastated by Hurricane Helene.
Cartner’s Christmas tree farm lost thousands of trees in the storm, “but this one stayed standing and they called it ‘Tremendous’ because of the extraordinary hope it represents,” Jill Biden said.
Biden began his long farewell Friday night with a gala at a gazebo on the South Lawn for hundreds of friends, supporters, Cabinet secretaries, Democratic donors and longtime aides who came to listen to and pay tribute to the president — despite Biden this summer being effectively forced out of the Democratic nomination and then watching Vice President Kamala Harris suffer defeat on November 5th.
“I am so proud that we did all of this with a deep belief in America’s core values,” said Biden, who wore a tuxedo for the black tie. Putting aside his criticism of Trump as a fundamental threat to democracy, Biden added his signature nationwide cheer: “I firmly believe that America is better positioned to lead the world today than at any time in my 50 years of public service .”
___ Barrow and Superville reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
