Former President Donald Trump shared an article praising Melania Trump’s White House Christmas decorations that argued they were better than First Lady Jill Biden’s efforts over the past two years.
Mr Trump posted a link to the article “Flashback to When Things Were Better: Melania Trump’s WH Christmas Decorations Throughout the Years” from conservative publication The Western Journal on his Truth Social account on Tuesday.
Journalist Mike Landry wrote that the current first lady’s choices did not compare to Ms Trump’s interpretations of festive decorations.
“This is not to be political, or overly critical of the decorating work of Joe Biden’s wife. And I make no claims of expertise in decoration or interior design,” Landry wrote. “It’s just that I know beauty when I see it, and Melania Trump added glamor and impeccable taste in presenting the people’s White House for the holiday seasons while she was there.”
Ms Trump’s yuletide design choices at the White House were a source of amusement and mockery, particularly in the first two years she spent as the first lady, when they were described as cold and bleak.
In 2017, an avenue of stark white branches was likened to “the upside-down” in Stranger Things and described as a “nuclear winter wonderland”, while in 2018, the display included a hall of blood-red trees described as something out of The Handmaid’s Tale or The Shining.
2019’s theme “Spirit of America” was warmer and less edgy than preceding years. In 2020, for her fourth and final Christmas in the White House, Ms Trump did choose to play it safe again with a traditional, patriotic theme of “America the Beautiful” including references to faith, love, military families, and first responders at the height of the coronavirus pandemic – there was even a cameo by JFK.
The 2020 unveiling followed the release in October of that year of a recording of the first lady complaining “who gives a f*** about Christmas stuff” by her former friend and employee Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.
“Give me a f****** break. I’m working like a—my a** off at Christmas stuff that, you know,” she said. “Who gives a f*** about Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right? Correct?”
Ms Biden’s tenure at the White House has stuck to warmer more traditional themes, as was expected when she took delivery of her first White House Christmas tree in 2021.
Mike Sington, a former executive at NBC, tweeted at the time: “After four years, thanks to First Lady Jill Biden, a normal, happy Christmas returns to the White House. It’s the end of Melania Trump’s dark, dystopian Christmases of ‘I’m working my a** off on Christmas stuff. Who gives a f**k about Christmas?’”
Another person joked: “Dr Jill Biden officially ends Melania’s four-year war on f’ing Christmas.”
The 2022 theme was “We the People” and for the first time included a menorah to mark the eight nights of Hanukkah that fall at the same time as the Christmas season.
