Melania Trump, America’s Creepy-Christmas Queen, Has Done It Again This Year

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

Though Melania Trump has been extraordinarily successful in transforming the role of first lady into a part-time, mostly remote gig, even she needs to put in some face time at the office. The holiday season is one of those times, as the first lady has traditionally been in charge of choosing a theme for the White House’s Christmas decorations, an unfortunate responsibility for someone who it’s fairly evident dislikes both Christmas and being first lady. Between all the festivities, Melania has already been seen in public more times in the last few days than she has during some entire months of her husband’s first year back in office.

She capped off the week’s flurry of activity Thursday night by joining President Trump for the National Christmas Tree lighting, during which Trump let her do the honors of flipping the switch. “Good job, honey!” he said, before delivering a speech in which he promised that “religion is coming back to the USA,” by which he presumably only meant Christianity, while Melania stood by in white coat, trying unsuccessfully not to look bored.

Earlier in the week, she linked up with second lady Usha Vance and actress Cheryl Hines—quite a squad—to make holiday packages for service members. (Melania seems to get along better with Usha than she did the previous second lady she served with, Karen Pence.)

But the most notable happening has probably been Monday’s debut of this year’s White House Christmas decorations. The theme is “Home Is Where the Heart Is,” which many saw as an apologia for the recent destruction of the East Wing, but I interpreted as Melania trying to reinforce the message that she can be just as good a first lady from New York and Palm Beach, Florida, where she seems to live most of the time, as she can from Washington.* A press release chirped that Melania was inspired by “the joys, challenges, and frequent motion derived from motherhood and business.” “The constant movement has taught me that home is not merely a physical space; rather, it is the warmth and comfort I carry within, regardless of my surroundings,” Melania is quoted as saying. “Motion”? “Constant movement”? Because she is usually shuttling back to where she really lives? I see what she’s doing.

Though Melania developed a reputation during the first Trump administration for goth Christmas displays, she didn’t go all out this year, which makes sense: She barely even works there! She also has less help. According to CNN, she employed five full-time staffers as of July 1. During the first term, she had 11. Her predecessor, Jill Biden, had more than 20. By not going over the top, Melania distinguishes herself from her husband, who is doing just that with his current White House renovations. Is it possible things are chilly between them in light of him unilaterally destroying her office space? I would say probably, but again … she barely even works there. Still, Trump has acknowledged that the construction noise is constant.

All this isn’t to say she entirely avoids making it weird. It wouldn’t be a Melania Trump Christmas without some truly perplexing choices, and the first lady managed to deliver a few of those despite the relatively more modest spectacle. There’s a certain creepiness to the video the White House released, which New York magazine likened to “Darth Vader surveys progress on the second Death Star.” Vanity Fair highlighted the absurdity of choosing to display a house of cards, that classic symbol of precarity, along with dominoes, which imply an inevitable fall. The “Be Best” logo makes an appearance, painted onto some ornaments; other ornaments feature A.I.-generated depictions of state birds and flowers. Trump’s gruff White House portrait has been re-created in Legos. Another tree is decorated with 10,000 butterflies. Picture a tree being attacked by a swarm of butterflies, and you’ve pretty much got it.

Maybe Melania identifies with the butterflies. Though she made just 19 public appearances between January and August (compared with 40 in the same time frame during Trump’s first term), CNN noted a couple of weeks ago that the first lady seemed to be emerging from her cocoon and gradually returning to public life. This makes sense both for the holiday season and Melania’s plans for next year: January will bring the release of her documentary, Melania, for which Amazon reportedly paid her an obscene $40 million. Might as well start promoting it now! The film will focus on “the 20 days leading up to the 2025 Presidential Inauguration,” according to HuffPost, which apparently took a year to edit into a coherent form. She is also launching her own production company. How will she handle running another company on top of her extremely busy first lady schedule? Something tells me she’ll find a way.

Correction, Dec. 8, 2025: This article originally misidentified the location of one of Melania Trump’s residences as West Palm Beach, Florida. It’s Palm Beach.