Milwaukee man helps decorate White House for Christmas

For Collin Falvey, Christmas means going all-in on decking the halls — not only in his own home, but the president's.

During Thanksgiving week, the Milwaukee man traveled to Washington, D.C., to help decorate the White House for the holiday season. It was his ninth time he's done it.

Falvey, who works full-time managing Walker's Point bar POP and as a drag queen, Ramona the Drag Queen, is also passionate about interior design.

He owns a business called Collin O'Brien Event & Designs, where he primarily does holiday decorating, but also gets contracted for weddings and other events.

He first helped decorate the White House for Christmas in 2015, during former President Barack Obama's second term.

Falvey said he remembers learning about the annual opportunity through an HGTV special about Christmas at the White House. Each summer, an online portal opens and people can submit a resume and an essay describing their qualifications and why they want to help decorate the White House.

Falvey was accepted the first time he applied in 2015.

"It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I was like, well, who's to say it has to be once in a lifetime?" he said.

Falvey decorated rooms at the White House for two years under Obama's administration and all four in President Donald Trump's first term. During the first two years of former President Joe Biden's administration, Falvey helped decorate Blair House, the president's guest house that has hosted foreign leaders and presidents-elect since 1942. He then took a two-year break before returning to volunteer at the White House this year.

In a divisive political environment, Christmas should be "a unified time" for setting aside political differences, Falvey said.

Collin Falvey, of Milwaukee, decorates the White House's State Dining Room in 2019.

"Obviously, things are polarizing no matter what side you fall on, and it feels especially more divided in these current times," he said. "But I always looked at it as the White House's moniker - it's called 'the people's house.' So it's for the people. It's not for a party. It's not for a president. It's not for a family. Even though they live there and work out of there, it's supposed to be the people's house."

Falvey said annually around 150 to 200 people are selected for the holiday decorating. He said he heard this year's applicant pool included thousands.

The decorating process is always held Thanksgiving week. Volunteers have the option to decorate for either half of the week or the full week, Falvey said. That Monday and Tuesday is dedicated to pre-decorating, like gathering supplies and piecing together arrangements, and Wednesday involves loading trucks and unboxing items at the White House, Falvey said.

The volunteers get Thanksgiving Day off, and then Friday through Sunday of that week is dedicated to putting up decor.

This year, Falvey said he was one of around six volunteers, out of the 200 or so, who had previously helped deck the White House's halls. He said something "really special" about his role this year was that he collaborated closely with Hervé Pierre, a costume and fashion designer and personal stylist for First Lady Melania Trump, on decorating the Red Room.

"We worked on the entire room together, with a few other volunteers helping us," Falvey said.

They adorned the Red Room with blue butterflies, for Melania Trump's foster care advocacy work, he said.

Collin Falvey of Milwaukee spent Thanksgiving week decorating the Red Room of the White House for Christmas. The room had a motif of blue butterflies.

According to a news release from the White House, the "striking color combination coupled with the butterflies' symbolic meaning of transformation and renewal capture the essence of Christmas."

"We assembled 10,000 butterflies by hand, that were placed on the tree, on the mantle, and exploding out of these wreaths in the windows as well," Falvey said.

He said he doesn't have a favorite year of decorating the White House; each experience has had its own highlights.

"I've had the opportunity to do a lot of fun, unique things. One year during the Obama (administration), because they had Bo and Sunny, those dogs, we made these 10-foot dogs out of pom poms and chicken wire," Falvey said. "I've been fortunate enough, I've worked in almost every single room ... over the years."

Collin Falvey met former President Barack Obama's dogs, Bo and Sunny, while decorating the White House in 2015.

Falvey said he met former First Lady Michelle Obama twice. He said the Monday after decorating is completed, a holiday party is held for the volunteers, and the first lady usually comes.

"It's cool because you decorate the house all week, and you kind of see what it looks like, but it's so different once they take out all the moving fixtures and the tools and they clean it," he said. "It's an awe-inspiring moment."