The crowd at the Trumps’ tree-lighting ceremony looked dismal

Last night, November 30th, was the official National Tree Lightening Ceremony. The annual event entails members of the public convening at President’s Park outside the White House to watch the First Family light a giant Christmas tree. However, the crowd was conspicuously small at Trump’s tree lighting this year, and the internet is cracking up.

Many will recall that crowd size is a particular source of ire for our Commander-in-Chief. He spent weeks claiming that the crowd at his inauguration in January broke national records, even though photographic evidence and on-site reports clearly disproved him. His administration even ordered an official investigation into the National Park Service in an attempt to prove they had tampered with crowd-size estimates — which resulted in official confirmation that they had done no such thing (great use of public resources though, right? NOT).

Needless to say, this pic from last night’s tree lightening ceremony tickled a lot of people.

https://twitter.com/udfredirect/status/936582025556955136

However, to be entirely fair (because we are not purveyors of #FAKENEWS), it seems as though attendance at the National Tree Lighting Ceremony often draws sparser crowds. The National Park Service noted that attendees apply for tickets through a national raffle, which means many who win don’t actually live in the DC area. Which means: A lot of people don’t end up showing up.

Here was a pic from Obama’s lighting in 2015:

The National Park Service also noted that the “standing only” section that’s open to the general public is often pretty full, you just can’t see it in the angle of these photos.

Basically, the picture going around Twitter today isn’t all that revealing of anything significant…though we did get some chuckles. And for that, we are thankful.