On Oprah Winfrey Christmas Show, Obamas Quibble Over Who Gives Best Gifts

When it comes to gifts, President Obama says he gives "nicer stuff that I get," an assertion disputed by First Lady Michelle Obama.
A treasured girlhood Christmas gift for Mrs. Obama was a dollhouse; for the president it was a basketball from the father he met only once. This Christmas, Bo the dog will get a stocking along with the rest of the Obama family.
All this information comes via Oprah Winfrey's upcoming "Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special," to be broadcast Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC.
Here's the inside story of Winfrey's visit to tape the show.
It was pulled together from three main elements: a one-on-one interview with Winfrey and President Obama; Winfrey talking to the First Couple together, and Winfrey getting a tour of the White House Christmas decorations with First Lady Michelle Obama.
Winfrey taped in the Oval Office, the State Dining room and the blue, green and red rooms. There is a special guest appearance by Bo and the White House pastry chef. Winfrey was at the White House on Dec. 3. (Barbara Walters was in on Dec. 1 to tape her interview with Mrs. Obama in a show where she names the First Lady the most fascinating person of 2009.)

Winfrey is a personal friend of the Obamas. She raised money for the presidential campaign and stumped for Obama in the crucial early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. She asked Obama to evaluate his first year on the job and he give himself a grade. Here's the tease -- Winfrey's not saying what the grade is in order to crank up interest in the show. Perhaps anticipating second guessers of her interview, she said, "This was not about grilling the president, this was really about me wanting to come and experience Christmas at the White House -- their first Christmas with them. So I wasn't here to grill him, I was curious as to what he thought he had done, what kind of job he thought he had done, and ask him for his grade. You'll see what the grade is. The grade might surprise you," Winfrey said in excerpts from the show released on Friday.

During the joint interview with the Obamas -- the first since they sat down together for The New York Times to discuss their marriage -- Winfrey asks them about their gift giving. The couple riff for their pal:

OW: Is there a greater pressure to give a good gift when you're the president or can you get away with a lesser gift if you're the president?

OW: Really?
First Lady: No way; I gave you good gifts last year.

On the favorite gift front, Mrs. Obama remembers a metal doll house she received and an Easy-Bake Oven she once had. Obama had two special gifts: his first 10-speed bike and that basketball from his father, who you may recall, skipped out on him when he was a baby. After marrying the president's mother in Hawaii, he moved on to Harvard and then returned to his native Kenya.

If any media personality has a leg up in the Obama White House, it's Oprah Winfrey. On the Sunday show, Winfrey tells how she "lobbied" for her interview, as if she were part of the rank-and-file media pack.

"From the very first day they moved into the White House, I started calling (White House Press Secretary) Robert Gibbs and asking not for the first interview because number one, I didn't think I was going to get the first interview for the first 100 days, but I wanted an opportunity to sit down with them in a comfortable setting that all of America would be familiar and relate to. So I started asking when they first moved in to do a Christmas Special because I wanted to be at the White House during Christmas time and to experience their first Christmas in the White House. So this has been in the making for a very, very long time."

However, there's more to the story. Winfrey did get the first interview with Mrs. Obama as First Lady, on Feb. 17. That day, Mrs. Obama led a White House tour for Winfrey and her friend, Gayle King, yielding a story for the April edition of Winfrey's "O" Magazine, where Winfrey shared the cover for the first time -- with Mrs. Obama. Back then, Mrs. Obama gave Winfrey a personal tour of the White House grounds, including the Jacqueline Kennedy Gardens, the East Colonnade, the Truman Balcony and the Yellow Oval Room, which is part of the First Family's private residence and where the interview took place.

I'm told that Winfrey was probably making a distinction between her magazine interview and TV show interviews. Anyway, this was Winfrey's first sit down with Obama as president.