President Biden kicked off his final holiday season at the White House on Monday by issuing the traditional reprieve to two turkeys who will bypass the Thanksgiving table to live out their days in southern Minnesota. Biden welcomed 2,500 guests to the South Lawn under sunny skies as he cracked jokes about the fates of "Peach" and "Blossom" and sounded wistful tones about the last weeks of his presidency, the AP reports. "It's also my last time to speak here as your president during this season, and give thanks and gratitude," Biden said, per the New York Times. "So let me say to you, it's been the honor of my life. I'm forever grateful."
Biden said the birds were named after Delaware's state flower, the peach blossom, ABC News reports. "The peach pie in my state is one of my favorites," he said during remarks that were occasionally interrupted by Peach gobbling atop the table to his's right. "Peach is making a last-minute plea," Biden said at one point, drawing laughter from an overflow crowd that included Cabinet members, White House staff and their families, and students from 4H programs and Future Farmers of America chapters.
- Biden introduced Peach as a bird who "lives by the motto, 'Keep calm and gobble on.'" Blossom, the president said, has a different motto: "No fowl play. Just Minnesota nice."
- Peach and Blossom came from the farm of John Zimmerman, near the southern Minnesota city of Northfield. Zimmerman, who has raised about 4 million turkeys, is president of the National Turkey Federation, the group that has gifted US presidents Thanksgiving turkeys since the Truman administration after World War II. President Harry Truman, however, preferred to eat the birds.
- With their presidential reprieve, Peach and Blossom will live out their days at Farmamerica, an agriculture interpretative center near Waseca in southern Minnesota. The center's aim is to promote agriculture and educate future farmers and others about agriculture in America.
- Until Inauguration Day, the president and first lady Jill Biden will continue a busy run of festivities that will double as their long goodbye. The White House schedule in December is replete with holiday parties for various constituencies, from West Wing staff to members of Congress and the White House press corps.
- At a separate event Monday, Jill Biden received the official White House Christmas tree that will be decorated and put on display in the Blue Room. The 18.5-foot Fraser fir came from a farm in an area of western North Carolina that was devastated by Hurricane Helene. Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm lost thousands of trees in the storm "but this one remained standing and they named it 'Tremendous' for the extraordinary hope that it represents," the first lady said.
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