Newport Beach woman helps deck White House halls

Tom Goethals had a secret.

The Newport Beach resident had watched his wife, a woman he had loved since high school, weather round after round of radiation treatment for breast cancer. It was her third time battling cancer since 1988. First it had been skin cancer, later uterine cancer.

Unbeknownst to her, Goethals, an Orange County Superior Court judge, had written to the White House — yes, that White House — in 2009. Could his wife, Patty, lend her decorating skills to the nation’s most famous residence for Christmas?

The answer was no.

This year, he wrote again. He described his wife’s battles with cancer. He said Patty, 62, an art major in college, had run a decorating business for more than 20 years.

“More important, she is a great wife and a brilliant mother to our three now-adult children,” he wrote. The couple have been married 38 years.

His plea was among several thousand applications this year from volunteers nationwide vying to be part of the annual White House decorating.

Then one night in October, an email from the White House landed in Patty Goethals’ inbox.

“I looked at him and I said, ‘You did this?’” Patty recalled. “I was in shock.”

***

The next few weeks were a whirlwind.

Patty called her children and canceled Thanksgiving dinner, a family gathering she had hosted for 30 years. She swore everyone to secrecy and signed a non-disclosure agreement required by the White House.

Thanksgiving found her standing in the lobby of the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C. She met the 105 other volunteer decorators, chosen from all 50 states and representing various walks of life. Nearly two dozen had served in the military or had a family member in the service, she recalled. One man said he had once guarded Air Force One.

At 6 a.m. the following day, the group took a 40-minute bus ride to a secret warehouse chock-full of decorations from every presidential era.

Standing in the vast space, Patty waited to hear which room of the White House she would be assigned to decorate. She hoped it would be the State Dining Room, commonly known as the Lincoln Room because of the painting of the nation’s 16th president that hangs over the fireplace.

Patty said her husband is a Lincoln buff and her first grandson was named after the former president.

Then she heard her name called.

“They called out Patricia Goethals, State Dining Room,” she recalled. “I got goose bumps. I was ecstatic.”

***

Two days later, Patty stood in the State Dining Room unloading truckfuls of ornaments with the seven other decorators assigned there. For three days, they decked the room with live garlands and climbed atop 25-foot scaffolding to adorn the highest branches of the Christmas tree.

They glued teddy bears and candy canes to boxwood wreaths. They created oversize wooden Scrabble pieces to array on the mantle. Scrabble, the volunteers learned, is the favorite game of President Obama’s daughters.

In the window bays, the volunteers arranged vintage luggage painted silvery white and dusted with glitter. Patty signed one of the luggage tags “Patty Goethals, Newport Beach, California.”

Each day at lunch, the volunteers feasted on salmon, chicken, vegetables and pies cooked by the White House chef.

Meanwhile, an HGTV crew filmed the volunteers for a holiday TV show.

“I just kept pinching myself,” Patty said.

Each night, she met Tom at their hotel, eager to tell him about her day.

Patty said she has always loved the White House because its traditional decor mirrors her taste. But decorating there was different beyond the obvious reasons, partly because every ornament she hung was attached with a wire, not a hook.

“We must have wired 6,000 ornaments,” she recalled. “My fingers were raw.”

On the last day, the head pastry chef wheeled an ornate gingerbread house into the State Dining Room. First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at a dinner reception to thank the volunteer decorators.

Tom accompanied Patty to the reception and saw her handiwork.

Now that she’s home, she still pinches herself.

“What a sweet, loving husband I have,” she said.

After beating cancer three times, Patty has felt life’s hard knocks. But this holiday season, she saw “her dream turn into a reality,” she said.

“We all have our trials. We all have something,” she said. “I wake up and every day is a new gift and a new blessing.”

Did you know?

• This year, the holiday theme chosen by Michelle Obama was “A Children’s Winter Wonderland.”

• The official White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room is 18 feet tall and nearly 12 feet wide. It comes from a tree farm in Leighton, Pa.

• About 65,000 visitors are expected to tour the White House this holiday season.

• The gingerbread house in the State Dining Room is made of about 250 pounds of pastry dough, 80 pounds of gingerbread dough, 40 pounds of marzipan, 25 pounds of gum paste and 25 pounds of sugar work.