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But the one thing the president and his family did not do -- something they have rarely done since he entered the White House -- was attend Christmas church services.

"He has not gone to church, hardly at all, as president," said Gary Scott Smith, the author of "Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush," adding that it is "very unusual for a president not to attend" Christmas services.

Historically, watching the nation's first family head to church dressed in their Sunday best, especially around the holiday season, was something of a ritual. Yet Mr. Obama's faith is a more complicated, more private, and perhaps -- religious and presidential historians say -- a more inclusive affair.

And his religious habits appear to be in step with a changing America, with fewer people these days reporting that they attend church on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. According to a Pew Research Center study released this month, 54 percent of adults said they planned to attend Christmas religious services, while 69 percent said they traditionally did so as children.

Mr. Obama has gone to church 18 times during his six years in the White House, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, an unofficial White House historian, while his predecessor, Mr. Bush, attended 120 times during his eight years in office.

But those numbers do not reflect the depth of Mr. Obama's faith, said Joshua DuBois, the former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. "President Obama is a committed Christian," said Mr. DuBois, who sends the president a daily devotional by email, and is the author of "The President's Devotional."

"He has a serious practice of faith even though he doesn't necessarily wear it on his sleeve," he said.

Mr. Obama's religion first garnered national headlines during the 2008 campaign; after sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. -- Mr. Obama's spiritual mentor -- included inflammatory remarks, Mr. Obama was ultimately forced to renounce the minister and sever ties with the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which he and his family had attended for 20 years.

But rumors that he was a "pretend Christian" or a Muslim Manchurian candidate -- fueled by his Kenyan background and the boyhood years he spent in Indonesia -- dogged him. A 2010 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly one in five Americans thought the president was a Muslim, and 43 percent did not know what his religion was.

"I would argue that Obama's faith has been one of the most misunderstood of any president out there," Mr. Smith said.