KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — It's the most wonderful time of the year and it would be less wonderful if we didn't have Glitterville—the pink Christmas wonderland in downtown Knoxville.
Stephen Brown spent another Christmas season adding a big splash of color to The White House. This year, he was chosen to decorate the main tree.
"It used to be where you had some breaks, but these days it just keeps going and going and going," Brown said.
There's no rest for the Knoxville native.
"As I told you last year, we weren't going to do this year because it is such a large amount of your time at this time of year," Brown said "And then they called and said, 'Well actually, we would really like for you to do the Blue Room tree and the official White House tree.' So, they had me when they said the official White House tree."
The White House's Christmas theme is "peace and light."
"They wanted the tree to have a carousel theme. I think what she meant was—I want some carousel ornaments on this tree —but I sort of took it differently and turned the tree into a carousel," Brown said.
Brown's not kidding. He constructed an actual carousel with moving animals, blinking lights, glitter and colors galore.
"That tree is 18-and-a-half feet tall, and when you go in—it's like, 'Oh my gosh, how am I even gonna get up there?' And the answer to that was scaffolding," Brown said. "Right before the gala at the White House that night, probably an hour before, not one animal on the carousel had a face."
Brown's a perfectionist through and through and it shows. He doesn't stop—ever. Especially around the holidays. He's busy now decorating the homes of celebrities, designing his showroom at a Dallas market and doing luxury window displays.
"Neiman Marcus has been our biggest partner now for years and our product launches for them are always fun. This year, there's a giant gingerbread house and giant gingerbread people," Brown said.
And as Brown tells us, there are more exciting things to come in 2025.