Santa has a Secret Service pass to the White House: Michelle

While a fly cannot enter the heavily-guarded White House without permission, Santa probably is one of those people in the world who has his "own Secret Service pass" to the virtual fortress.

US First Lady Michelle Obama stated this to a group of children yesterday when asked whether Santa also had to go through the Secret Service to enter one of the most secured buildings in the world.

"Well, Santa is probably one of the only people in the world that has his own Secret Service pass. I mean, everybody knows Santa -- even the Secret Service. So they give him a pass," Michelle said.

"Does Santa have to go through Secret Service to visit the White House?" Michelle was asked at the Children's National Medical Center here.

"He's got the highest security clearance there is," she added.

During her interaction with the children, the First Lady responded to a number of questions ranging from what the First Dog, Bo, would receive as Christmas gift and what she plans to give to her two daughters Sasha and Malia.

"What do you do on Christmas Eve?" asked one named Yasmine.

"Sometimes we watch a movie together, we'll have a nice dinner, and then we go to bed kind of early because we've got to be in bed in time for Santa to get there. So Malia and Sasha try to get to bed early so that Santa can come," Michelle said.

"Does Bo go to bed early in the morning?" was the follow up question.

"He does," the First Lady said. "He actually gets pretty tired early. He's usually a lump by about 7:00. 7:00 is when he's pretty much run out of energy," she added.

Another child wanted to know, how many chimneys she has at the White House.

"Chimneys, this is a good question. "We have 54 [26] fireplaces, and 12 chimneys," she said.

"Wow" exclaimed one of the child.

"It's a big house," the First Lady said.

"What did you ask Santa for this year?" she was asked.

"You know, I didn't ask Santa for anything yet. You know what I think I want Santa to give? I want Santa to give all the little boys and girls in the world a happy Christmas and good health. That's what I want them to get," Michelle said.

And then she was asked about her favourite holiday tradition.

"Every Christmas since Malia was born we've spent it in Hawaii with the President's family. And that's a nice holiday tradition for us.
 
We get to spend time together, the girls don't have school, they don't have homework, the weather is nice," she said.

"And then one of the things we do for Christmas -- and we did this when I was a little girl -- but because we had a big family and everybody couldn't afford gifts, we did a talent show grab-bag. So everybody would put some gifts into a bag and you had to take a number, and then you had to do some kind of -- anything," Michelle said.

"You would sing, dance, tell a joke -- anything. So everybody in the family would gather around after dinner and we would entertain each other. And we still do that at Christmas. We have a talent show every year. That's a good tradition," she said.