“Everybody has a different taste,” Melania Trump said this week .

Speaking at a town hall conversation at Liberty University, the first lady was referring to her White House Christmas decorations, which were unveiled in a short video on Monday, and the kerfuffle they caused. Particularly the red topiary trees lining the East Colonnade. The entire nation has come to know the phrase “blood red,” as it became the stuff of late-night monologues.

It turns out taste these days — in Christmas decorations, at least — can be a litmus test for a person’s politics and how they feel about the Trump administration. Not even garland, string lights and candy canes are above partisan squabbling.

Ms. Trump’s decorations, which also included “Be Best” pencil wreaths and tree stands (a nod to her childhood-wellness campaign) as well as gingerbread replicas of the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial and other national monuments, could be seen as either “stunning” and patriotic (the Washington Times) or “deeply haunted” (The Cut). It was the rare media outlet that played it down the middle, as did Town & Country, which tactfully called the red trees: “Most striking, perhaps.”