White House Holiday Decoration Tour Route Will Be Updated

The Washington Post

12:15 JST, October 25, 2025

Despite the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to build President Donald Trump’s ballroom, you can still expect the annual holiday decoration tour at the People’s House, which attracts tens of thousands each year.

In the past, visitors entered through the East Wing and then traveled through the East Colonnade, a long hallway that served as a thesis statement for the annual decorative theme – that’s where first lady Melania Trump’s famed red trees stood, for example, and first lady Jill Biden’s candy cane columns buttressed dangling sweets.

As of this week, those structures no longer exist. Nevertheless, the holiday decoration tours will still occur this year, though the tour route will be updated, per a White House official. (The general public White House tours were suspended indefinitely in September due to the construction of the ballroom.) The theme will be revealed shortly after Thanksgiving, just like in previous years.

Other rooms that play a prominent role in the decor each year, such as the East Room and the State Dining Room, are concentrated in the executive residence of the White House. Those remain standing.

The legion of volunteers who do the lion’s share of labor each year – armed with scissors, hot-glue guns and other tools to trim for the yuletide – have heard back from the White House. Tammy West, owner and creative director for Glow Floral Event Design in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and her assistant applied to volunteer (the Office of the First Lady began soliciting volunteers in August) and learned they had both been accepted a few weeks ago. They discovered this week that their background checks had cleared.

Typically, preparations for White House decorations begin many months in advance. Brainstorming for last year’s “Season of Peace & Light” kicked off in January, while more full-scale planning occurred after the Easter Egg Roll. Then, in the fall, it was time to begin executing. White House staffers expected about 100,000 visitors, including guests at a slew of holiday parties.

The first lady traditionally spearheads holiday decorating, a task that has grown more all-consuming over the years with the addition of new elements. Noel-fanatic Mamie Eisenhower began consistently putting the White House Christmas Tree in the Blue Room. In 1961, Jacqueline Kennedy was the first to select an official theme for said tree. (She chose “Nutcracker Suite.”) An increasingly intricate gingerbread house became part of the offerings during the Nixon administration, and, since the 1990s, those cookie creations have been made to resemble the White House itself.

Melania Trump took the helm during her husband’s first term. Secret recordings released of her in 2020 revealed her exasperation with the responsibility. “I’m working … my a– off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f— about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” she said in 2018, per the recordings. “But I need to do it, right?”

And it can at times be a thankless task: Each year, people scrutinize the decorative choices for their aesthetic value and potential political symbolism.

Melania Trump’s former social secretary, Anna Cristina Niceta (who goes by Rickie), has every confidence in her former boss navigating around the construction. “It’s not something that I think people have to worry about,” she says. “She’ll make it beautiful. She makes everything beautiful.”

A short video posted to X by the Office of the First Lady in October showed Melania Trump placing a painted gold ornament atop leafy garlands. The caption read “Christmas meeting in the @WhiteHouse.”

West has booked a flight and hotel for her volunteer gig. “It’s going to be just so magical in itself and such an honor to be able to represent my city of Tuscaloosa and the state of Alabama,” she says. “I’m going to just take it all in, and I know I’m going to love every minute of it.”