The Olympic National Park ornament was hand-painted by the park Landscape Architect Jack Galloway, using a rich palette of greens and blues to depict the park’s diverse features. Coastline, deep forests, and glacier-capped peaks form the backdrop, while salmon swim in the rivers and ocean, elk browse in subalpine meadows and a tribal canoe travels along the coast.

"Jack’s creative genius and technical skill came together to produce an ornament that beautifully represents Olympic’s varied resources,” said Olympic National Park Superintendent Bill Laitner.

The ornament for Joshua Tree National Park was made by Twentynine Palms artist Audrey Gillick. The hand-painted glass ball depicts a Joshua tree forest landscape under a full moon on one half of the circular ball and under a sunny sky on the other half. She and her husband, Owen, attended the artists’ reception hosted by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House on November 28.

Jim Wilcox painted an ornament depicting Grand Teton National Park’s iconic scenery. Wilcox, namesake and founder of the Wilcox Gallery in Jackson, Wyoming, is a well-known painter of dramatic landscapes that often focus on the beauty and tranquility of the Teton Range and the park. Once a high school art teacher, Wilcox decided to pursue his craft full time following a successful show of his paintings at Jackson Lake Lodge. Working in oils and acrylics, Wilcox uses light to create different moods as he strives to capture the Teton scenes that first inspired him.

This ornament was created by Eatonville, Washington, artist Dale Thompson, how had a long career with the National Park Service before retiring as Mount Rainier's chief naturalist in 1981.

The ornament depicts the traditional iconic mountain scene of Paradise meadows and the Muir snowfield taken from Mazama Ridge. A self-described bird nut, Thompson also included on the back side of the ornament images of two colorful bird species found in the park – the western tanager and the Steller’s jay perched on white pine boughs.

Jim Disney created this ornament for Rocky Mountain National Park. An accomplished artist, Disney is also an accomplished mountaineer who knows the park’s backcountry intimately. Known primarily for his mountain landscapes, Disney chose a snowy nighttime scene of the park’s most prominent mountains, Longs Peak and Mount Meeker, with a foreground of evergreens lit up with colored lights, to grace the ornament. He gold-leafed the ornament and antiqued it, burnishing it to a beautiful mellow glow. On the back he wrote, “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All - Rocky Mountain National Park.”

Perhaps the most unusual ornament in the White House collection, this ornament depicts the Historic Entrance to Mammoth Cave National Park. It was created by Ranger John Yakel.

Starting with a five-inch ball, Ranger Yakel sliced a hole in the side of it and applied papier-mâché to depict layers of limestone at the Historic Entrance to the cave; he dripped hot glue over the “mouth of the cave” to create the spring, and applied modeling shrubbery to the top of the ball for the forest.

I know we are headed towards winter, so this photo isn't totally time appropriate, but I found myself thinking about Elk in Yellowstone this past weekend. I did a search on Flickr for a good Elk photo and found this one. Looks like it was originally captured on film and then scanned to digital (the photographer says it was shot in '99). I especially like the natural backlight, the color of the grasses, and the spacing between the animals. The photo has a very 3 dimensional feel.

To go along with this week's Zion Park History story, I thought I'd track down a cool shot from the park for the photo of the week. I like the lighting in this shot. The upper right corner is blown out, but the rest of the frame is very nice. So many shots of parks are taken in the so called "golden hours" just after the sunrise, and just before sunset. These shots are beautiful, but there is still plenty of good opportunities for great shots in the middle of the day (like this one).

I don't know what the weather is like in your neck of the woods, but around here, in the Great Northwest, we've got clouds and rain. This photo, actually taken in April, reminds me of what the landscape looks like around here right now - low light, misty, rainy, wet, and gray. Many of the photos I post in this column show the hyper-color beautiful shots of sunsets or wildflowers, which is perhaps why I like that this photo is on the opposite side of that spectrum. Here's what Matt says about the photo:

With all the talk of Harpers Ferry this last week on our website, I thought it would be appropriate to track down a nice shot of the Historical Park.