First lady and known Christmas-hater Melania Trump is prepping to once again face down her dreaded task of decorating the White House for the holiday season.
The first lady’s X account posted a brief video of Melania grimly placing a white and gold Christmas ornament on a festive table Wednesday afternoon.
“Christmas meeting in the White House,” reads the caption.
Though the video provides just a brief tease of the first lady’s decoration plans this year, it heralds the return of a tradition from the first Trump administration: the annual discourse over Melania’s bizarre decorations.
The first lady was widely memed and criticized for her decoration choices particularly in 2017 and 2018.
In 2017, a photograph of the decorations from former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham made a hallway look like a ghoulish dark woods akin to a black metal album cover.
Though the rest of the White House looked much more traditional that year, the photograph gave Melania a reputation of making the White House look frigid and grim for the Christmas season.
2018’s decorations featured red trees that many commenters noted bore a striking resemblance to the red cloaks worn by Handmaids in The Handmaid’s Tale.
2019 and 2020’s Christmas decor saw less intense backlash, but Melania’s reputation as a Grinch was sealed in 2020, when tapes leaked revealing the First Lady doesn’t really care about the holiday.
She was recorded in 2018 saying to former close friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, “I’m working like—my a– off—on Christmas stuff, you know? Who gives a f— about Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?
“Then I do it. And I say that I’m working on Christmas planning for the Christmas. And they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that were separated?’ Give me a f—ing break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that?”
At the time, Melania was referring to the Trump administration separating migrant families at the border.
Melania faces a strikingly similar problem in Christmas 2025 as she did in Christmas 2018. While she preps for her anticipated return to decorating the White House, the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies are broadly unpopular, with the administration separating families and detaining children in violent ICE raids.
Americans will have to wait until the end of November to see how Melania helps the White House embody the spirit of Christmas during this tumultuous time.
The Daily Beast reached out to Melania Trump for comment.
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