By Greg Jordan
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BECKLEY – Imagine being checked out by the FBI before you decorate your house for Christmas.
This scenario might sound outrageous, but it was a necessary step for a West Virginian who was among the decorators and other professionals invited to share their Christmas talents at the White House.
Travis Collis of Princeton, who owns Travis Collins Designs there on Thorn Street, was busy Thursday getting Tamarack decorated for the Christmas season. Besides selling gifts and other items at his Princeton store, he uses his skills for decorating spaces.
“I do decorating for commercial and also private residences as well, so I’ve helped decorate at The Greenbrier for the last nine years probably. And then this is our first year doing Tamarack, so I’m super excited to be here,” he said. “We’re spreading some Christmas cheer. That’s my favorite thing to do.”
Collis started out by decorating his home from Christmas.
“It’s my whole life. I’ve decorated ever since I can remember, so it turned from a hobby and a passion into a career,” he said. “And then it just kept growing and growing. I did a couple of events and weddings and stuff and it just keeps expanding. I’m very happy about that. I’m very grateful for that.”
While helping get Tamarack decorated for Christmas is challenging, the decorating project Collis recently helped complete was even bigger. For seven busy days, he was among the 145 volunteers chosen to get the White House ready for Christmas.
This holiday experience started with a suggestion.
“Over the summer, a friend of mine sent me a link that said the White House was looking for decorators and you had to fill out this really extensive application and submit a portfolio,” Collis recalled. “A couple months passed at least. I received an email and it said you have been chosen pending security clearance, so I had to fill a bunch more information and a couple weeks later I finally got the final approval.”
At first, Collis wasn’t sure that the White House invitation was real.
“At first I thought it was spam. Did not think it was real at all.” Collis laughed. “I thought, what a horrible joke for somebody to play, but then when I followed the link and it took you to the FBI, it was serious. It was serious.”
Collis and the other volunteers did not meet President Trump, but they were greeted by First Lady Melania Trump. The First Lady later spoke to them during the White House’s first official Christmas party of the year.
“And they were from all over the country. There was 145 of us chosen out of 12,000 applicants,” he said. “They said based on the percentages and the acceptance, it was easier to get into Harvard than it is to decorate the White House. That was pretty neat. It was kind of my Harvard, going to do the White House.”
The First Lady and her advisors had a Christmas theme ready for the volunteers.
“They had the colors that the First Lady had chosen and she works a full year with her staff trying to develop everything,” Collis said. “So they gave us a vision and the materials they would like us to use. We were allowed to go in and create, and they would come in and fine tune what we did. Me and a partner did the four mantels in the East Room, which is largest room in the White House, and that was such an honor. And the First Lady didn’t change any of it, which made it even better. She was happy with it and liked everything.”
The Christmas decorating that the First Lady approved ranged from the formal to the whimsical.
“She was very appreciative of everything and liked it all, and we worked on the trees in there and then I did some work in the Green Room as well, which was a game night theme,” Collis said. “They had vintage toys and we did a Lego version of President Trump and President Washington, and so that was really cool.”
Collis had toured the White House previously, but the rooms are roped off. In contrast to being tourists, the volunteers worked in the historic rooms filled with art and artifacts.
“You just couldn’t believe it,” he recalled. “You’d look over your shoulder and there was a portrait of President Kennedy or President Lincoln. It’s like, how was I able to do this?”
When all the work was done, the volunteers were entertained by the Marine Corps Band and other performers during that first Christmas party. They also got to enjoy the same White House food served to the president.
“It was great. It was the first official holiday party in the White House, so that meant a lot for us to see it,” Collis said.
Collis and the other volunteers who decorated the White House this year were not automatically invited to come back next Christmas.
“You have to apply all over again. They want to give everyone a fair chance and absolutely, it would be kind of selfish of me to want to go every year,” he said. “I want to go, but I want other people to have the opportunity as well. I never thought I would get to experience this and I want other people to feel the same way.”
The volunteers started their days around 6:30 a.m. and usually worked until 6 p.m. or even later. Decorating the White House for Christmas was on a much bigger scale than decorating the average home and it required a lot of work.
“But you wanted to,” Collis said. “It was very hard work, but it was real rewarding because you knew you were doing something for your country. We’re decorating the People’s House. How many people can really be able to say that? It was really worth it to see everything at the end.”
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