President Donald Trump is all set to bring in his first Christmas at the White House. Trump and the first lady Melania commenced the festivities in the capital Washington D.C. on Thursday evening by lighting the National Christmas tree. The program was kicked off by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who introduced the president. The holiday season will span a month of parties, public tours and receptions.

Along with the president and the first lady, other members of the Trump family such as daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner were also in attendance with their three children. The program had a pageant of peace ceremony and the first family was joined by actors Dean Cain and Kathie Lee Gifford, who hosted the event that dates back to President Calvin Coolidge. The event was conducted on the White House Ellipse, which is a 52-acre park located just south of the White House fence.



However, seems like the big event wasn’t widely attended as several users on Twitter posted pictures of empty seats during the celebrations and mocked Trump for the number of people that showed up. Twitterati was ruthless as they compared the attendance at the National Tree Lighting ceremony to Trump’s inauguration, which had also witnessed a dearth in attendance.

Check out the tweets here.

A Twitter user named Mr. Greeks wrote about the crowd, “The National Christmas Tree lighting as Donald Trump speaks, Let's just say he's the Grinch that stole Christmas!”

Another user named Duncan Renaldo wrote, “Empty seats at the National Christmas Tree Lighting! Be interesting to see how Donald Trump spins this on Friday.”

Host Stephen Colbert had said about Trump's Inauguration ceremony, “There were big empty spaces in the crowd, or as Trump called them, ‘the most people ever. The greatest, most fantastic lack of attendance in American history. You’re not going to believe how many people didn’t show up,'” according to an article in the Entertainment Weekly.

Trump also spoke at the event and discussed with the crowd the “incredible national Christmas tree,” while noting that this tradition goes back nearly a century.

The president took to his Twitter and wished America and the world a very merry Christmas.

Here are his tweets.

Melania’s communication secretary Stephanie Grisham confirmed the Trump administration will hold around 20 events during the holiday season. Grisham’s statement also led to comparisons being drawn between the celebrations carried out by Trump and former President Barack Obama.

The White House, which debuted its decorations this week, courtesy of the first lady, included 53 trees and 12,000 ornaments as opposed to 62 trees including the Oval Office and 70,000 ornaments in Obama’s White House.

Grisham also revealed close to 25,000 people are expected to participate in all the public tours. However, according to a report in the Politico, Obama’s White House saw a visitor count ranging from 80,000-90,000 people, including parties and public tours, during 2016, according to the special assistant to the president under Obama and former director of the White House Visitors Office, Ellie Schafer, which is more than double of what Trump would be expecting.