By Doug Miller

The nation’s turn toward the holiday season came in a blaze of multicolored light this past week in New York and Washington with the ceremonial lighting of giant Christmas trees at Rockefeller Center on the Ellipse of the White House.

But students at the Chancellor Avenue School in Newark, New Jersey, were absorbed in preparing for the holiday season earlier than usual this year—because they were making Christmas ornaments that now adorn the First Family’s official Christmas tree in the Blue Room of the White House.

The seventh-and eighth-graders were part of a nationwide art project involving 60 community groups and schools around the country that produced nearly 700 hand-decorated ornaments—red and gold balls—for the Obamas to hang on the White House tree. This year’s theme is American landmarks, which could be local, regional or national.

Beatrice Awosola, eitghth grader at Chancellor Avenue School, designing White House holiday ornament. Photo credit: Mitsu Yasukawa/The Star-Ledger

Those instructions naturally led the young ornamentalists at the Chancellor Avenue School to choose to depict such state landmarks as the busy Port of Elizabeth, New Jersey, the Meadowlands, home of the National Football League’s Giants and Jets teams, and their school and the city park right down the road. They also chose to honor the World Trade Center and signature images of the City of Newark.

Nj.com reports that the Chancellor Avenue School was selected by White House urban policy staff member Alaina Beverly as one of 60 community groups and organizations from around the country to participate in the holiday decoration project. Beverly is a former associate of the school’s vice principal, Charity Haygood, and her husband, Ryan Haygood, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Eileen Carmiche, the students’ art teacher, told nj.com her decorators are taking their time to ensure a quality product. “They really care about what they’re doing because of who it’s for,” she said. “They’re so worried about what the president is going to think.” But at the same time, “They’re having a ball.”

Carmiche noted that the students chose the 10 New Jersey cultural and historic landmarks—one for each of the recycled ornaments sent by the White House—because of their real-life meaning. You won’t see the Grand Canyon on any of the decorations, she advised, because none of the kids have been there.

But they’re quite familiar with life in Weequahic Park, scenes from which grace one of the ornaments destined for Pennsylvania Avenue.

And while the park might be right down the street, the White House project itself, says vice principal Haygood, has taken her students to another level. “They’re so invested,” she says. “So excited, and so involved.”

Doug Miller is a writer living in Westchester County, New York.