Then to top it off, Thursday they traveled over the river and through the woods -- or at least on Air Force One -- to Hawaii, where the president's sister lives.
After a month of holiday parties in their new home, the Obamas are scooting out of town a little earlier than many presidents -- who often have spent Christmas at the White House and then headed "home," wherever that was.
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Sasha, left, and Malia Obama join a long line of children who have celebrated the holiday season in the White House. More: First Daughters Answer Kids' Questions
Malia and Sasha Obama are following in the pitter-patter footsteps of 149 presidential children before them in waiting out the Santa season in the nation's most famous residence. President Andrew Jackson even hosted a party with an indoor "snowball fight" -- complete with cotton snowballs -- for the kids in his extended family.
Of course there is a downside to living inside a winter wonderland decorated by 92 volunteers working a collective 3,400 hours. It comes with 50,000 visitors over the holiday season.
After all those visitors, most presidents are anxious to skip town for the week between Christmas and New Year's, said Betty Monkman, former White House curator from President Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency until 2001.
Johnson went to his Texas ranch and President Ronald Reagan went to California, but many others spent the time at Camp David, especially the Clintons, who had no home of their own after moving to Washington from the Arkansas governor's mansion.
"They have a lot of facilities there [at Camp David] -- bowling alleys ... there's even a chapel there now. And there are many guest cottages for extended family," Monkman said.
The Obamas' plans were still up in the air just days before Christmas because President Barack Obama was waiting for the Senate to pass health care reform. But once the Senate vote was scheduled for Thursday morning, the White House announced the first family would leave Christmas Eve morning for Hawaii.
Many presidents have waited to leave town until after spending Christmas Day in the White House for the sake of the Secret Service agents and other traveling staff, said Gary Walters, former White House chief usher.
"They wanted those people to be home with their families" instead of out of town on Christmas day, said Walters, who retired in 2007 after 31 years as chief of the usher's office, which runs the White House facility. .
The holiday celebration in the public part of the White House -- which includes Hanukkah decorations -- is planned out almost a year in advance. "We start planning them literally as we're taking decorations down from one year," Walters said.
But the first families usually bring some of their own traditions and decorations to the family quarters of the White House. Of course it's still not quite the same as sticking up a tree in a family home in Chicago or Little Rock or Houston. White House electricians are on hand to string the lights, and housekeeping workers can put some generic ornaments on before the family adds their own heirlooms like hand-colored paper ornaments made by family members when they were small. And making that gigantic gingerbread replica of the White House requires carpenters and band saws to construct.
At age 8, Sasha Obama is the youngest first child since the Kennedys; Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton were older. Carter took advantage of her White House digs to host her class Christmas party at the White House, Walters said.
But there have been many other young children there. Grover Cleveland had three tots during his term (and two more kids later). He hung stockings for them filled with bon bons in the toes, figs in the heels and toys in the legs.
And some presidents brought along grandchildren. Andrew Johnson moved in with 10 family members, including grown children and grandchildren. He threw a party for them and more than 200 other families a few days after Christmas in 1868 with square dancing and plenty of treats.
Benjamin Harrison invited not just his family but all the domestic employees at the White House for gifts on Christmas. "We shall have an old-fashioned Christmas tree for the grandchildren upstairs, and I shall be their Santa Claus myself," he said, according to the White House Historical Association.
The first family's personal tree usually is in the Yellow Oval Room of the residential quarters. But when President Theodore Roosevelt decided that cutting a live tree clashed with his conservationist beliefs, his son had to hide a Christmas tree in a sewing room closet, the historical association says.
When Barbara Bush was first lady, she brought ornaments collected during the family's world travels and a lineup of nativity scenes -- including one from the Middle East and one made of needlepoint by her church lady friends back in Texas.
The families also bring their Christmas recipes. Like families everywhere, they have "grandma's pumpkin pie or special candied yams," they want made for dinner, Walters said. Cleveland even ordered up a 57-pound turkey, to go with cracker stuffing, mashed turnips, boiled onions and oysters.
Each family brings a little of its own personality into the holiday season, Monkman said. But having young children around -- baking cookies with the pastry chef or inviting friends over -- always makes the place more magical, she said.
But the Obamas apparently have had their fill of the Christmas magic and are heading out to a different sort of magic: beaches, shaved ice and mild weather. It won't be a white Christmas, unless you count the surf.
