She calls it a bucket list item…she’s got one less to do. Ashley Thompson has been selected as a decorator for the White House this Christmas season. While it’s been on her list, she just happened to be thinking about it at the right time this summer.
I was planning the Christmas season for the shop and then I went online to see when the window was open so I could make a note on it and it just happened to be open so I decided to apply.
She said a lot of the application is an essay. She remembers having to detail her experience and laying out the reasons she was qualified for such a prestigious invite. She’ll be part of a team and she knows she’s working on the final three days of the week long effort leaving the St. Louis airport on Thanksgiving Day and working 28th – 30th. While Thompson without question has ideas, but she’ll be taking her cues from tradition and the First Lady.
I think from what I’ve gathered it’s actually the First Lady’s responsibility to set the theme every year and the decorations overall. I think there’s actually blueprints that are laid out and then some of the material is already there and they bring in new ideas and then the teams will be responsible for building and putting it all together. That’s what I’ve gathered from my research. I’m sure I’ll learn more details.
On finding out she’d been chosen…
I actually had been working several weeks without a day off. So Tuesday, October 7th, we didn’t have any funerals and I was waiting for some pieces for a few projects to come in so I decided to take the day off to travel to Edwardsville to surprise my mom and sister for their birthdays. I had my phone on silent the whole trip, about 2 hours, so I got to my mom’s house and was getting ready to walk in the house to surprise her and I had like 27 missed calls from Travis [Ashley’s husband]. I thought, oh no something terrible has happened. I called him…he said I’m talking to someone on the phone…don’t open your email. So I thought, oh no, it must be horrible, somebody’s upset about something. So I go on in and surprise my mom and then he calls back and tells me I’ve been selected, so it was pretty cool.
She said she didn’t think she’d ever get selected coming from rural Illinois. If you don’t get a chance to make the trek to D.C. to see Thompson’s work first hand, she says she’s hopeful she’ll be allowed to take pictures and she believes HGTV does a special on White House Christmas decorations.
It’s a culmination of a mindset that Thompson credits her dad with and dates back to her days at the University of Illinois.
My dad and I met for lunch and he said ‘you really need to sign up for this class…don’t worry about the details or money…we’ll figure that out in time’ so I ended up getting accepted into that and got to study abroad in the Dominican Republic and I learned so much from that. It was eye opening and I always remember that when he would always push me to look for opportunities and not worry about logistics. You can always figure that out. When I went to apply, I knew it would be a lot of money to do it because it’s a volunteer experience. They’ll cover my lunch and breakfast but dinner, flights, hotels are at my expense. And we have three kids at the holiday season so I felt selfish. This experience could really help our business, give us some exposure, and I’ll be working with designers from across the country, maybe even the world and maybe I can learn stuff to bring back and make my work even greater. So yeah.
One of the best ways you can help support Thompson’s trip to showcase her talents is to shop Farmhouse Florist and make the cash register ring. Find them at 117 East Main Street in Carmi and on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FarmHouseFlorist21/. You can also shop online by visiting https://www.farmhouseflorist.store/.