(illustration by the author for Hyperallergic)
Hello, America. My name is Melania “First Lady” Trump. Since I decorated the White House for Christmas, I have got many messages from Sarah Huckabee Sanders asking for top tips to decorate her home this season. So, I will be sharing advice on how to make all your lives as beautiful as mine. I think you can agree it is better than Michelle Obama’s vegetable program.
First, for a dramatic entryway, take your family’s newest big game hide (elephant or rhino works best) and use it to block out any natural light. Use low lighting to throw long shadows, making even the smallest gold candelabra look big and mighty. Some people like to decorate with flowers, but my husband Donald thinks flowers look “feminine” and “terrible,” so instead he makes me decorate with large dead twigs. He always says to me, “Melania, people can hide in bushes, but not in pots of twigs with no leaves!” Do not worry; with the right room and dramatic lighting, even a bundle of dead twigs can look majestic in your home.
In the Christmas season, we have permission to turn the Gold Rooms in our homes to centers of even greater opulence! I insist all things that enter this room be dipped into gold. So far, we have dipped silver goblets, Karen “Second Lady” Pence’s iPhone, secret copies of the New York Times, and photos of my no-good stepdaughter Tiffany. Sometimes there are things you cannot dip in gold, like a painting by Renoir. I love Renoir, because I like looking into the obsidian eyes of the women he paints.
(illustration by the author for Hyperallergic)
Next, remove the glass from your window panes. Glass in windows is for warm-blooded people, and for people who can enter and exit the front door without needing to ask permission. Now, like a Swedish frozen ice queen, you can pull your furs around your throat and throw icicles at funny dancing snowmen.
(illustration by the author for Hyperallergic)
Some people like to watch a Yule Log on Christmas Eve. My husband Donald does not because it does not agree with him when he makes tweets. Instead of decorating with a television Yule Log, I suggest throwing books into an open fire and looking at that instead. That way you can leave the TV on, but switched to a channel with Honest News coverage of the birth of wonderful Jesus.
(illustration by the author for Hyperallergic)
Ina Garten, homely American housewife, likes to make the home look like a common barn for the festive season. In my old home of Slovenia, we used barns for housing animals, love-making with handsome farm boys, and dental operations. If you decorate your living room with Ina’s “rough-hewn salvaged wooden beams” and “river stone hearth,” people will think your main home was taken away because your husband went bankrupt. Therefore, I advise to not follow the suggestions of Homely Ina and leave the rocks in the river.
Many people prepare milk and some cookies for Santa Claus. That is not a good gift, and it is not good as an interior decorating decision. I leave Santa Claus a blue Tiffany box with a little note that says “take me with you.” He will think it is from Barron, but it will be from both of us.
(illustration by the author for Hyperallergic)
