White House halls decked simply, with tradition

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Robin Givhan / The Washington Post

Amid the White House holiday decorations unveiled Monday morning, tucked into the pine boughs along a mantel in the China Room, are Biden family recipes for an apple crisp, along with directions for making Italian pizzelle that, according to the reproduced handwritten recipe card, was handed down from one Mrs. Jacobs. Windows in the Green Room are filled with golden bells that are really just inverted plastic cups spray-painted with gilding and attached to colorful satin ribbons. And an entire tree in the State Dining Room is decorated with the self-portraits of schoolchildren. The decorations are a combination of unabashed kitsch and schmaltz, do-it-yourself ingenuity and captivating fantasy, along with multiple iterations of first pets Commander and Willow.

The decorations are enticing and familiar. Impressive but not overwhelming. They’re a tonic.

They’re doing their best to serve as a visual and emotional respite from the bad news that sometimes feels so relentless that one wonders if the nation’s flags shouldn’t just remain at a permanent half-staff. They’re a break from the bad blood that has citizens looking at the folks across the fence line and calling them demons rather than neighbors. The mounds of fake snow, paper-wrapped fanciful birch trees and the handmade owls and fox are doing what holiday decorations are meant to do, which is to make people pause in delight, reclaim some lost childhood memory and consider for a moment the ways in which life really is good.

It took more than 150 volunteers a week to adorn the White House for the holidays using the theme “We the People.” While there are experts who oversee the transformation, it’s the volunteers who do the carting, draping and hanging. The reliance on volunteers isn’t specific to the Biden White House. It’s a long-standing tradition. Earnest Americans are the ones who wield the glue guns in this grand institution. They affixed pompoms and jingle bells to tiny foam trees that had been attached to mini ramekins and then painted gold. They hung wooden spoons dipped in faux frosting and rolling pins in the China Room. The philosophy behind this craft-making ingenuity is that anyone can decorate as the White House does. But, of course, that’s just a lovely fairy tale for all but those who are both extravagantly endowed with free time and an abundance of creative chutzpah. But no matter. It’s not so much that folks are expected to follow the White House, it’s that they could.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-white-house-halls-decked-simply-with-tradition/

[sprinkleeninow]

1. Elegance. Ukrainian Nat'l colors are a plus! (Most likely not deliberate!)

Last edited Fri Dec 2, 2022, 12:39 AM - Edit history (1)

[BigmanPigman]

4. That was the first thing I thought, too!

[sprinkleeninow]

11. 👍👊

[BWdem4life]

2. Can you imagine the RW uproar

If the Bidens had done something like Melania did?

[ShazzieB]

5. OMG, yes!

Fux News would be like

[sprinkleeninow]

12. Trashy and tacky red flocked trees. Blech.

[hedda_foil]

3. All the rooms are shown here.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/holidays-2022/

[BigmanPigman]

6. Thanks for sharing those.

I love the different themes. Each room is so well done.

I worked in Visual Display at Macy's for 3 years and we spent months putting up the decorations and 8 hours to take them all down.

[hedda_foil]

7. Thanks, BP. I wanted to see all of the rooms so I searched it out and wanted to share.

What a dream job you had! Macy's Christmas displays were always so breathtaking.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Putting the decorations up was exhausting.

60 hour weeks and a staff of only 3! I was so pooped out from it that I didn't feel much like doing my own home's decorating.

I still use my display mantra "pyramid, it must be like a pyramid" without realizing I am doing it all the time naturally now. Basically stack stuff high in the center and have it get get shorter as it gets further from the center like a pyramid.

[hedda_foil]

9. I wrote a series of visual merchandising trading videos for Sears long ago.

All I remember is triangles and the color wheel. I doubt anyone learned anything from watching them.

[BigmanPigman]

10. I learned fast

since I had no experience except a Bachelor of Fine Art degree so whatever my manager said was my training in the field. I was the only woman and the two male coworkers were afraid to climb the 16' ladder on top of a 5' island to hang Christmas banners from the 30' ceiling. No fun!!! I still have red and green paint on half of my clothes from back then. The problem I had was that I was a perfectionist but in Visual you are not allowed that time, everything must go up fast, fast fast! It drove me crazy.

After the store closed due to the recession in 1993 I went back to college to change professions and join one that had a union.

[sprinkleeninow]

13. Thanks! Man, that staff sho' was ultra busy!!

[pfitz59]

16. Much better than the previous occupant

classy, not trashy

[Marcuse]

14. Lest we forget.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Ugly, sinister. They look like they are watching, ready to close in on people in the hall.

Like a bunch of Trumps.