This article is from the archive of our partner 
. The White House posted a whole bunch of holiday photos on the official Flickr stream Tuesday while everyone was paying attention to the Florida Republican primary, a sort of news dump usually reserved for embarrassing emails or other bad news. All of the photos are mostly from early December, so while it's already February, and the holidays are merely a dim eggnog-blurred memory, we're just now learning what went on at the White House in the run-up to Christmas. What are they hoping we don't notice? Meryl effing Streep, guests asking the president to take their pictures, among other things.
President Obama and the first lady
met Streep December 4, when she was being honored at the Kennedy Center.
How did Michelle Obama's earlobes survive this onslaught?
Special advice for special guests Marilyn Arleen Nelson and Glen D. Nelson on having a photo taken with the president: UR DOIN IT RONG.
When meeting
Elie Wiesel in the Oval Office December 5, Obama looked like an excited little kid meeting Santa. He's practically ready to sit on Wiesel's lap.
"I just wanted to see what it was like getting in here," Obama said while
passing through the magnetometer in the Northwest Gatehouse, according to the Flickr stream, on December 9. He beeped, obviously.
From
December 9: The Obama family is a tall family.
Soldiers
ask for autographs after Obama marks the end of the Iraq war in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, December 14. Those patches on the soldiers' right sleeves mean they've been deployed in the war zones.
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who like on-the-lips
doggie kisses and people who find the thought of such a thing appalling. The first lady is in the latter category, clearly. Bo was greeting the audience of Michelle Obama's reading of
Twas the Night Before Christmas at Washington's Children’s National Medical Center on December 12.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.