Allison Page knew the White House would answer by Oct. 2.

Last year the answer had come about a week early, and it was a no, so this fall she spent the final days of September keeping an eye on her inbox.

The email arrived during her lunch break. She saw who it was from before she could read what it said.

“I opened it and I immediately was just like, ‘Oh my gosh!'” she said. “I was just completely in shock. I still am.”

Page, who owns Page Design Company, is one of 150 volunteers chosen from about 15,000 applicants to decorate the White House for Christmas this year. She will spend Thanksgiving week in Washington, D.C., working alongside the other volunteers, with Thanksgiving Day off to spend with her family. Volunteers are also invited to an afternoon reception hosted by first lady Melania Trump.

For weeks, Page had wondered whom she would call first if the answer was yes.

Her parents, David and Vanice Page, settled it for her by being together on a trip out of town. She called her mother and asked her to put her father on the phone, and that was all the explanation her mother needed.

“As soon as I said that, she was like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Page said. “Everyone around us just heard us screaming.”

Her sister, Abigail, heard next, then her coworkers, who had known she applied. A confirmation email two weeks ago made it official. In a statement announcing her selection, Page thanked God, her family, her friends and the customers who have hired her over the past six years, and said she was excited to represent Millington and Tipton County in Washington.

“Every opportunity you have given me to create something beautiful has shaped the designer I am today,” she wrote.

A tree in a rental house

The past six years started with one Christmas tree.

During her senior year of high school, Page babysat for a friend whose family was living in a rental while they built a house. The friend knew Page decorated for fun and asked her to do their tree. They became her first client outside her own family, and this Christmas will be the seventh one she’s spent decorating for them.

Page graduated from high school in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and started University of Memphis classes online. That year she decided to try decorating as a business. She rented a booth at Abandoned Antiques in Millington, set up a few trees and hung a sign offering to decorate in people’s homes. Some of the customers who found her at that booth still book her.

The next year she held her first holiday open house in a D&D model home and since then, the annual open house is hosted at the South Tipton Chamber of Commerce; this year’s event was this past weekend.

Once Page started decorating in clients’ homes, she realized there was nowhere nearby to buy high-end holiday decor, and she didn’t feel right showing up with the same things clients could pick up at a craft store. She got a business license so she could buy wholesale, and the open house became a place to sell it. Customers can buy pieces there and have Page use them on their trees, or have her show them how.

“I won’t buy anything that I wouldn’t use on my own tree,” she said. “I want to buy stuff that’s going to last for a lot of years and not fall apart.”

Weddings came along in 2022, when Page was working part time at a flower shop. Wedding work now fills most of her year, along with wreaths, seasonal decor and interior design jobs that can run from furniture and fabric to pillows and drapes. Part of what she likes about wedding flowers is that they can’t be done early.

“You have to wait till so close before and then it’s like go time,” she said.

All of it happens around a full-time job. Page started at Patriot Bank Mortgage as a part-time teller during her senior year at the U of M and moved into a full-time position when one opened.

“I’m pretty much working two full-time jobs. That’s how I feel,” she said. “But we’re making it work.”

The second try

Page first heard about the White House’s volunteer program about three years ago, when a Memphis florist posted that he had been chosen.

Immediately, she said, she wanted to do it.

I was like, ‘Oh, this is my dream …'”

Anyone can apply. The application goes online in late July or early August and closes at the end of September. Through a series of essay questions, it asks about decorating and industry experience and why applicants want to take part, and it leaves room for a link to a website or portfolio.

Page doesn’t know yet what she will decorate. Volunteers receive a badge and an apron and are assigned to teams when they arrive. From what she has read, the first few days usually take place off site. Past volunteers have learned on the job whether they would be working in the Blue Room, the Red Room or somewhere else.

The themes are set in advance and kept quiet until the White House unveils them. To prepare, Page has been rewatching HGTV’s White House Christmas specials.

When she first discovered how much she loved decorating, she said, the appeal was simple: someone would pay her to do her hobby. The White House is a different matter.

“This is awesome,” she said. “I will never forget that opportunity.”