Save the Christmas coal for Donald, not Melania
If you read the reviews this week without seeing the photos, you might assume Melania Trump’s White House Christmas decorations include skulls, blood fountains, broken glass, radioactive lights, weeping reindeer, undead snowmen and soul-stealing orbs imported from the Seventh Circle of Hell.
Merry Christmas? More like a Scary Christmas, sang a choir of Melania’s critics, unpacking pop cultural references to once again ridicule her yuletide decor.
Elle: “The 2018 White House Christmas Theme Is Apparently The Shining.” Vox: “Melania Trump’s White House Christmas decorations have become a horror meme yet again.” Uproxx: “Melania Trump’s White House Christmas Decorations Look Like They Came Straight From Handmaid’s Tale.” And on and on and … pa rum pum pum pum.
Intrigued, I watched the official Christmas reveal a few times, waiting for the heart-stopping moment in the video in which Melania pops out from behind a tree in a Michael Myers mask or butchers carols while speaking in tongues, her head spinning around like a scene from a seasonal remake of The Exorcist.
Her Christmas display must betray the unholy fiascos of this White House, right?
Is Santa packing heat to support the NRA? Is Rudolph infected with a virus
because his parents are anti-vaxxers? Are the elves very fine neo-Nazis? Is Frosty plotting a doomed trade war? If you stand under one of these newly commissioned mistletoes, will Donald Trump, reeking of Tic Tacs and political desperation, sneak up from behind and grab you by the privates while slobbering over your tonsils?
How will Melania Trump’s decking of the halls give the world more ammo to deck the man she inexplicably married all those years ago? How can we fire up the guilt-by-association and mock her this Christmastime to convey our disdain for him?
But my critical faculties must still be dulled from the dangerous amount of spiked eggnog I consumed last December: all I see in this video is beautiful decor. If anything, I get why Melania feels like “the most bullied person on the world.”
This week, she was. And all for a Christmas display that’s actually wonderful. From the visually striking crimson topiaries in one hallway to the perfectly lighted firs, from the gleaming ornaments to the delicate boughs of holly, if this “American Treasures” theme was unveiled by previous first ladies, including Michelle Obama or Laura Bush, those same critics would lavish praise on the bold vision that is at once traditional and modern, evocative and futuristic.
These decorations are as controversial as gingerbread snaps.
They are as scandalous as the TransSiberian Orchestra.
But Melania Trump never gets a pass. If she piloted a rocket ship into orbit and prevented an asteroid from smashing into Earth, her critics would mock her spacesuit. Even though she has publicly contradicted the White House more times than any first lady in recent memory — from rebuking a policy that separates refugee families at the border to raising awareness of cyberbullying when her husband is the No. 1 tyrant on social media — Melania never gets the benefit of doubt.
She’s seen as either MIA or silently complicit. She’s dismissed as a trophy wife who can do no right because, by extension, she’s now up to her neck in wrong.
But imagine how much worse things might be without Melania at least trying to infuse some decency and civility into her husband’s swirling mess of indecency and incivility. Imagine if Donald Trump had married one of those Fox News-type groupies who nods along with everything he says and defends every indefensible action. If one of those women had designed the Christmas display this year, the trees would be trimmed with shredded global accords and festive canisters of tear gas.
Instead of milk and cookies, Santa would squeeze through the chimney to find a deportation order. The stockings on the mantle would be ironically scrawled with the nicknames of Trump enemies: “Horseface,” “Lyin’ James Comey,” “Wacky Omarosa,” “Pocahontas,” “Mr. Magoo,” “Crooked Hillary.”
Mr. President, let’s raise a slab of fruitcake to Crazy Jim Acosta.
Ask yourself this: why are some of the most loyal and dedicated public servants in Washington now quietly embedded in the East Wing when, by stark contrast, the West Wing is a revolving door that gives way to paranoia, incompetence, bootlicking dishonesty and internecine skulduggery? Melania Trump isn’t just leading an independent unit on a battlefield of crazy; she’s inspiring a team of do-gooders who are polar opposites of their feckless counterparts elsewhere in the White House.
Melania Trump’s staff would take a bullet for her. It’s not clear if anyone connected to her husband would be willing to stub a toe for him.
Sure, a “Be Best” ornament might seem absurd when it’s hanging in the residence of a man who is widely seen as the worst. And, yes, the concept of seasonal decor itself seems ridiculous when myriad problems emanate from the nearby Oval Office.
But none of this justifies the cheap shots fired at Melania Trump this week.
She’s doing the best she can to bring stability to chaos.