Outgoing First Lady Melania Trump showed off the White House’s Christmas decorations on social media for the final time Monday.
“During this special time of the year, I am delighted to share ‘America the Beautiful’ and pay tribute to the majesty of our great Nation. Together, we celebrate this land we are all proud to call home,” she wrote on the official @FLOTUS Twitter account, which will pass to Jill Biden in January.
Trump, who was reported to be skipping her office’s decoration preview last week, led a virtual solo tour of the 2020 decorations, which include a hospital and a fox, as well as an ornament promoting her “Be Best” initiative.
Last Tuesday, numerous reporters obtained a statement that said Monday, “the Office of the First Lady will host a preview of the 2020 holiday décor at the White House,” but Trump herself “will not be in attendance.”
The absence of the outgoing first lady from the final run of one of her most notable annual duties was quickly noted on Twitter, where users recalled audio that leaked of her disparaging the holiday in the fall.
“I’m working … my a– off at Christmas stuff that you know, who gives a f— about Christmas stuff and decoration? But I need to do it, right? Correct?” asked Trump in a conversation with her former friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who recorded their chat and later published it while promoting her tell-all about the first lady.
In the audio from 2018, she went on to complain not only about her job of decorating the White House for the holiday but media coverage of her role.
“OK, and then I do it,” she can be heard saying, “and I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Ooh what about the children that they were separated? ‘ Give me a f—ing break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that?”
A representative for the first lady did not immediately return a request for comment on the event, slated for later Monday, or the pre-released video.
During this special time of the year, I am delighted to share “America the Beautiful” and pay tribute to the majesty of our great Nation. Together, we celebrate this land we are all proud to call home. #WHChristmas pic.twitter.com/fdZmB3rdXL
— Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) November 30, 2020