A fantastic Christmas card, sent by pianist Eugene List and his wife, violinist Carroll Glenn, bearing a photograph of an aging Harry Truman playing the piano in the East Room of the White House with List looking on behind him. In the background, one can also make out the faces of John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, and Lydon B. Johnson, all sitting in the front row.

Kennedy hosted Truman at the White House in early November 1961 and invited List to perform for the occasion, knowing that List was a great favorite of Truman's. The performance took place in the East Room before 43 attendees. List, being an advocate of the American pianist-composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, played The Banjo. The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum holds several other photographs of the event.

List first met Truman at the Potsdam Conference in 1945. The young pianist had been invited to perform there, and Truman himself turned pages when List was asked to play the Chopin Waltz in A-flat, op. 42, but did not have it memorized. List earned the moniker "Pianist of Presidents" and made several appearances at the White House in the decades after the war.

Truman was an enthusiastic pianist, having studied from the age of seven. He reported waking up at 5 o'clock every morning to practice and took lessons twice weekly for eight years.