Clinton Is Stirring, Shopping the Night Before Christmas

WASHINGTON — President Clinton made quick work of his Christmas Eve shopping, an annual ritual with his daughter, Chelsea. In slightly less than two hours, he rang up a potpourri of loot: jumbo coffee mugs, necklaces, books, whistles and a $35 ceramic donkey.

He said he was stocking up for Christmas 1998.

“He shops so quickly,” marveled Katherine Cooke, who hemmed and hawed over her own purchases at a jewelry stand in Washington’s Union Station while Clinton teased her to buy something.

“I work for them,” the president joked of the attendant cashiers. “I’m on a commission.”

Clinton had said the night before that his Christmas shopping was done and he was hitting the stores with Chelsea only as a matter of tradition.

But as the shopping bags accumulated and were passed off to aides, Clinton shrugged. “I thought I was done. I just got carried away. I did a lot of work for next year,” he told reporters.

The complete list of his booty: the donkey, two necklaces, a miniature house, five colorful $25 Tombo pens, three jumbo coffee mugs, a calendar, a tiny kaleidoscope, four books, two train whistles, two sets of funny goggle eyeglasses, a regular coffee mug and an old FDR campaign button.

He alternately paid with cash, American Express and Visa Gold. After an hour or so, Chelsea split off to do her own shopping.

The Clintons planned to join longtime friends Vernon and Ann Jordan for dinner later before Christmas Eve church services.

Andy Brown, a Washington-area sales representative, was at Union Station picking up a necklace for his wife and took comfort in Clinton’s appearance among the last-minute panickers. “I don’t feel bad now. I thought I was the only one who did this, but I guess I’m in good company,” Brown said.

At his last stop, Clinton paid cash for the two $5.99 cedar train whistles. Already toting half a dozen paper and plastic sacks, Clinton dropped the whistles into a bag from another store.