Washington ? There’s something for just about every faith at the White House this holiday season.

Over the course of 24 hours last week, President Bush helped light a menorah for Hanukkah and the national Christmas tree and visited a mosque at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The effort is as much about not offending as about including. The official cards from the president and first lady do not mention Christmas. Little about its cover painting of a Franklin Roosevelt-era Steinway piano in the White House’s Grand Foyer, save red draperies and flowers, calls the holiday to mind. One recipient even mistook it, especially given the card’s early arrival, for a Thanksgiving greeting.

And what could be more secular than the White House holiday decorations theme: a history of presidential pets?

The president has no plans for anything more than a written proclamation of Kwanzaa, the historical and cultural holiday that celebrates traditional African values that begins Dec. 26.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the president cannot put every holiday on his schedule and tried to focus on the ones representing most Americans. “You do reach a point where you can reach so far into America’s cultural richness that you can dilute the events,” Fleischer said.

The Bushes’ holiday card includes a verse from the 100th Psalm praising God: “For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations.”

As usual, a large creche of 18th century Italian terra cotta and carved wood figures fills an East Room alcove. The only obvious religious symbol among the White House’s gilded red-and-gold holiday decor, the creche depicts the manger scene at Jesus’ birth. Few Americans will see it, because public tours of the executive have remained strictly curtailed since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Formal party invitations ask guests to a “Christmas reception.”

Bush was reared Presbyterian, became an Episcopalian and now is a United Methodist, the faith of his wife, Laura. The importance of his faith is a main reason for his celebration of other religions’ observances, spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

“It is a real visible manifestation of the president teaching the importance of tolerance and openness and celebrating faith,” Fleischer said. “The purpose is not to preach a particular faith. The purpose is to celebrate faith itself.”

President Bush participates in the lighting of the menorah during the eight-day Hanukkah celebration at the White House. Bush lit the menorah on Wednesday. Also last week, the president lit the national Christmas tree and visited a mosque to help celebrate the end of Ramadan.

On Wednesday night, Bush presided over a simple ceremony for the Jewish Festival of Lights by lighting candles on a large, brass donated menorah in the ground-floor Bookseller’s Lobby. Hanukkah has taken on added importance because it allows Jews to recognize their faith at a time of year when Christianity is omnipresent.

By midday Thursday, the president was in a Washington mosque on the occasion of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. Inside the majestic building, Bush paid tribute to Ramadan’s emphasis on charity and tolerance. He also remarked that the more than 1 billion adherents to Islam worldwide learn from their faith of justice and moral responsibility and a “rich civilization of learning.”

Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, attended an iftar dinner, the traditional breaking of the daylong fasts during Ramadan, with a gathering of female Muslim lawyers the night before. The president hosted an iftar feast Nov. 7 at the White House.

On Thursday night, there was the outdoor “Pageant of Peace,” where the national Christmas tree was lighted.

The president invoked the story of Jesus’ birth, speaking in much more personal terms than at the other observances.

“For over two millennia, Christmas has carried the message that God is with us,” the president said. “And because He’s with us, we can always live in hope.”