A Connecticut mother and DIY-er is sharing her experience decorating the White House. She was one of 150 volunteers selected from across the country for the festive tradition.
"There were moments throughout the week where you have paint on our hands and a glue gun or whatever and you're looking for that thing that you need which feels very familiar to my day-to-day, but then you're like 'Omg, I'm in the foyer of the White House,' so that part didn't get old the entire time," Charlotte Smith said.
Smith can now add decorating the president's home to her list of creative accomplishments. She's a blogger, mom of four and content creator who was given the opportunity to decorate for the holidays.
"'How the heck did you get to the White House? How did that happen? How did that happen?' So here's the little-known secret about the White House volunteers - it's open to the public," Smith said.
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People around the U.S. can apply to volunteer. Once selected, you make your way down to Washington, D.C.
"My group was responsible for the state dining room and the red room and so we start out in this secondary location, I cannot tell you for confidentiality reasons, but they put us on a bus and we went to this warehouse where we were creating and making and prepping, and then everything is brought over to the White House," Smith said.
This year's theme is called "We the People." Decorations included 25 wreaths, 77 Christmas trees and more than 83,000 lights.
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Smith admits she did have a favorite space.
"One of the most magical spaces was the East Colonnade downstairs. This was created by artists and vendors that were able to work on this prior and it was just birch trees handmade out of paper and cardboard that sort of created a canopy over the hallway and just had sort of these magical mirrors and pom-poms," she said.
Inspired - she decided to try it out at home.
"And so I was able to take a little bit of my Amazon boxes, reshape them, it doesn't look nearly as magical but it looks pretty cool. I like it," Smith said.
She says one of the most asked questions she gets when it comes to her time at the White House is how politics played a part in it. Her response? It didn't.
"What I think we were most excited about was the observation that this really had nothing to do with politics," Smith said. "This wasn't a private home, we were all helping to make nice, this is a house of the people and we just had the best time being part of it."
Anyone is welcome to apply.
