Designing Christmas Laura Dowling

Due out in September 2025, Laura Dowling's Designing Christmas is available early at Cheekwood this year as part of our 10th Annual Holiday LIGHTS featuring Dowling's designs in the mansion's historic rooms. 

Laura Dowling's romantic floral designs combine French-inspired artistry with the wild chaos of nature, infusing everyday interior settings and special celebrations with a unique charm and stylish sensibility. With brilliant brushstrokes of color and texture that burst forth from swirling foliage, lush flowers and brambling vines emerging from hand-made vessels - Laura creates exciting moments of ephemeral magic. In this book, Laura invites all of us into her world of unique beauty to inspire us with innovative ideas and practical strategies for fashioning a beautiful Christmas at home. She gives us insight into her creative process starting with an overarching theme and special focal point vignettes inspired by Paris, her White House decorating experience, and her appreciation of nature, especially the resplendent beauty of her native Pacific Northwest. Laura also shares ideas for implementing decor in phases and layers throughout the season, describing how to deploy her 10 favorite elements in 10 design schemes, ranging from a vintage Parisian carousel theme and Virginia hunt country vignette to a classic Italian-style motif. Whether your vision is adding just one or two special holiday touches or creating a full-blown Christmas extravaganza, Laura's practical tips and tricks and generous how-to instructions are gifts of inspiration. 

As the Chief Floral Designer for the White House from 2009 - 2015, Laura enhanced the historic White House rooms with garden-style flowers and was the creative director of the iconic Christmas that captivated visitors from across the country each year. From conceptualizing elaborate White House decor schemes that carried out the First Lady's to currently envisioning inspiring vignettes for iconic venues and celebratory fetes across the country, Laura's timeless designs exude an elegant exuberance that is both charming and approachable. In Designing Christmas, she describes her vision for creating and sharing beautiful, festive and memorable Christmas splendor at home. In addition to her writing and design platforms, Laura travels the country as a featured speaker, delivering entertaining talks and flower demonstrations as one of only a few Chief Florists in White House history.