Not to start on a down note here, but the holidays can be hard. All that presumed merriment. All that compulsory cheer. The serotonin spiked from listening to “All I Want for Christmas Is You” for the 40th time today can be met with a precipitous dip by, say, the 41st. And this year? Well, it’s the time of year when one wants to be around others, and right now we can’t do that (or else, the worst). 

All this is to say is that sometimes December in America is pure joy, but it can also get a girl down. That’s understandable; it’s okay. Here’s a small, small consolation: At least you don’t have to decorate a whole White House year after year because it’s your duty, your cross to bear, the shibboleth you married into. Melania Trump knows what I’m talking about. Poor thing. 

In her own words, courtesy of a recorded conversation with former friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, “I’m working my ass off at the Christmas stuff…who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?”

Hell on earth, it sounds like. Forced Christmas cheer at its worst. And yet, she goes on. She does it. She does the fucking Christmas stuff year after year, and she doesn’t want your pity or mine. She wears an outfit, she smiles for the uncanny little movie trailers this administration makes and releases every so whenever. This year, as it is every year in the Trump White House, the holiday theme is some spin on nationalism.

“America the Beautiful,” specifically, and there are planes, trains, automobiles, and gingerbreads and homages to the first lady’s signature issue, Be Best. Gone are the spindly hallway filler, and the blood-red trees. Gone is anything too modern or stylized. Nothing to meme here. It’s a classic Christmas for a nostalgic nation. She even thanked the volunteers who helped her put it all together this year. 

Soon, Melania Trump will exit stage right. She won’t have to bother with this stuff any more. Until then, she does what she must. She must bide her time, as do we. The rest of us can look forward to the Christmas chapter in her rumored forthcoming memoir, and never paying this much attention to decorations again.

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