What you need to know
President Melania Trump is already thinking about Christmas ahead of her first high-stakes holiday since returning to the White House.
Almost seven years after she was secretly recorded swearing about her Christmas responsibilities, first lady Melania Trump is once again in charge of the White House’s Christmas preparations. On Oct. 8, the first lady shared a short video with X in which she planned a Christmas display of delicate gold-themed ornaments and leaf garlands.
“Christmas meeting at @WhiteHouse,” Melania’s office wrote in the caption of the post, along with a glitter emoji. The official theme for the 2025 holiday has not yet been revealed.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty
The White House’s Christmas decorations were a hot topic during President Donald Trump’s first term.
First lady Melania Trump, who opted for fairly traditional White House decorations in her first year as the president’s spouse, went even bolder in 2018, installing 40 blood-red cone-shaped Christmas trees throughout the White House and calling them “American treasures.”
The White House said in a statement that the red hue is an ode to “the pale color, or stripes, found on the presidential seal designed by our Founding Fathers” and is “a symbol of courage and bravery.”
Fascinated by Melania’s artistic choices, the internet responded with a flood of memes criticizing the decoration, likening the shaggy red trees to the red cloak in The Handmaid’s Tale or the bloodbath in The Shining.
Melania Trump later defended her controversial decoration, saying everyone has “different tastes” in the 21st century.
Melania said, “I think it’s very nice. I hope everyone comes to see it. It looks even more beautiful in real life.” “Everyone, please visit the White House, the nation’s home.”
AP Photo/Carolyn Custer
The topic of Christmas decorations apparently reached the first lady behind the scenes. In a leaked audio recording from the same year, first lady Melania can be heard complaining about the responsibility placed on her to decorate the White House.
“I’m working… I’m all about Christmas stuff. Who cares about Christmas stuff and decorations?” Melania Trump said in a 2018 recording that was leaked to CNN in 2020.
“Okay, so when I said I was working and planning for Christmas, they said, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen to the separated kids?’ Give me a break,” she continued on the recording, seemingly venting her simultaneous passion for serious issues like her husband’s family separation policy at the southern border.
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Years after her White House holiday controversy, Melania’s friends, political insiders and members of her Mar-a-Lago club told PEOPLE in December 2024 that Melania plans to predictably step up and continue the White House tradition this time, regardless of her personal feelings.
“Melania will do what is asked of her as first lady on her own terms, including decorating the White House for the Christmas holidays,” a Palm Beach social source told PEOPLE. “She will set her own schedule, make her own rules, and use her own preferences.”
“Will her attitude be any different this season than before?” Source added. “I doubt it.”
Another social source predicted that she would spend more time and energy on decorating in the next four years.
“This season, without her (late mother Amalia Knahus), she will try to create her own tradition and we may all be surprised,” the source said. “She has Barron with her, and since Barron is closer to Washington than she is hiding in Palm Beach, she may spend more time decorating the White House for Christmas and devote more honest interests.”
The source added: “This doesn’t mean she’s fine, it just means she’ll do what she has to do. That’s nothing new.”
