Melania Trump is once again working her “ass off at the Christmas stuff” even though “you know, who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations.” This year, her last as first lady, she’s carrying out her prescribed duties as if it were like any other year. She’s doing it all as though she wasn’t recorded besmirching the name of the holiday that her husband famously saved from the dreaded P.C. police.
On Monday she welcomed the Christmas tree. In years past, a couple of beautiful Clydesdales have taken a break from starring in beer commercials to escort the tree to its penultimate resting place, the Blue Room of the White House. Often, both halves of the first couple are there to greet the fallen fir and the family who grew it—Don in his wide tie, Melania in a tartan coat, serving literal Mrs. Claus to the people.
This year Don was not there, and Melania’s coat was herringbone, but otherwise, it was business as usual. She made some conversation with the two men steering the sleigh and dutifully smiled for the camera alongside the Taylors, who grew the Fraser fir—one photo with mask on, one mask off.
What a cognitive dissonance to see traditions like this go on while the president makes a flaccid attempt to undermine democracy and the pandemic rages stronger than ever. It’s dissonant, too, to see the first lady do Christmas again after hearing in recorded phone calls her absolute displeasure with having to do Christmas. The placid smile, the polite conversation, reportedly ignoring a question about the president and instead saying “Merry Christmas.” The parallel universe that the first family sometimes lives in is well here at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
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