Confessions of a Celebrity Christmas Tree Decorator: 'What I've Learned from Beyoncé and Paris Hilton'

Known as Dr. Christmas, Bob Pranga has been trimming the trees of stars like Mariah Carey, Kevin Hart, and John Legend for nearly 40 years

He goes by the name Dr. Christmas, so certain expectations precede his arrival.

On a recent Monday in Los Angeles, I am waiting for the good doctor to come to my apartment. His real name is Bob Pranga and the honorific is more stage name and less Hippocratic Oath. Nonetheless, he has agreed to take a look at my Christmas tree and share with me what he’s learned after decking the halls of celebrities such as Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Christina Applegate, John Legend, Kevin Hart, Paris Hilton, and Kris Jenner over the last 40 years.

Pranga, 61, has been working in the holiday genre since 1984. After interning in the costume shop of Saturday Night Live, he started working in the holiday décor department at Macy’s Herald Square store in New York City. Mia Farrow was shopping one December day and, while admiring a tree in the store Pranga had decorated, casually said to him, “I wish I had someone to decorate my tree.”

“Maybe you do,” he replied.

Dr. Christmas is reliving this moment while sipping on a Coke Zero at my dining table. Every so often he shakes his blond hair out of his eyes and glances over my shoulder at my tree.

“It’s a little lopsided,” he says quietly.

He’s almost at the end of his busy season, having just finished decorating Kevin Hart’s house. “I like to say I’ve done everyone from Bob Hope to Beyoncé," he says.

Despite the proximity to a slew of A-list clients, he says his role is almost always behind the scenes. "I rarely get to go to a celeb’s Christmas party. I'm generally setting them up," he explains. "My friends are like, ‘Beyonce’s party must be amazing.’" He pauses, then adds, "I shouldn't say that. I have been invited, but you know, I'm always covered in fake snow by the time the invitation comes.”

He's in his fifth decade professionally spreading Christmas cheer throughout celebrity homes, hotels like the Beverly Hilton, and institutions including the Hollywood Museum.

He demurs when asking about prices.

"There's no exact science to this because there is no ceiling on Christmas, once you get past the greenery and the cost of the lights. You could have a bunch of $1.99 ornaments on your tree or you could have $1,500 ornaments. So I ask, 'Do you want the Honda, the Lexus, or the Rolls Royce?'"

The Rolls, he says, is about $200,000. Pranga confirm he had one Rolls Royce client this year.

After all these years of garland, lights, egg nog and Elves on Shelves, Pranga is still feeling the spirit. Mostly. “I still look forward to the season, but the truth of the matter is, once we get to it, I'm usually disappointed. Because I don't actually do Christmas. You know, you spend the year going, ‘Oh, I am looking forward to Christmas, and this year will be different.’ And it isn’t. It sounds like a sad story. It's not.”

He still puts up a tree, similar to his childhood. “It’s 1960s Sturgis, Michigan Christmas at my house." (Multi-colored lights, never clear white, he says.) "Just like growing up, no matter whatever dysfunction was happening around me the rest of the year, Christmastime was always this respite.”

Related: Mariah Carey's Ultimate Christmas Guide: What She Thinks of Matching PJs, White Elephant Parties and More (Exclusive)

If Pranga is a doctor, he’s more psychiatric than medical. “I sit down with people and learn who they are before I decorate for them. What do they want? Who do they want to be?” And, perhaps most importantly, Who were they?

"Christmas is always about the past for most people. They want to recreate something or fix what happened. There's a lot of baggage that comes with Christmas, you know?” He says clients regularly haunt him with ghosts of Christmas past — both literal and figurative. “I have people who present things to me with embarrassment, like, ‘Oh, this is my grandmother's ornament.’ I just say, "’If it's important to you, we'll find a place for it.’”

When Dr. Christmas moved to Los Angeles in 1989, he wanted to be an actor. “They all told me there were 100 people who looked just liked me and that I’d work more when I got older,” he says with a laugh. “Look, I was $150,000 in debt back then. I was broke all the time. But I loved the holidays.” He began working at one of the malls — at a Christmas store.

“[Actress and singer] Pia Zadora came in one day and was looking around and asked if I’d come to her house and help her,” he recalls. He began to see that this could be somewhat of a career. The next year, he began working for Kathy Hilton at her now-closed store called The Staircase. The mother of Paris and Nicky and future star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills would become a mentor. And would christen Pranga with a new name.

“It was fascinating to watch Kathy,” he remembers.  “She liked me. She liked my talent. She was a big fan of Christmas. She kind of took me under her wing a little bit. She pulled me aside one day and said, "You want to make it in this town, kid, watch me. When she wants something, she goes for it.”

Hilton introduced him to her circle. “She had a lot of very famous friends," he says. He began decorating for folks like Kris Jenner. “I started out calling myself The Christmas Guy because I was not very creative at the time. And then, one day Kathy said, ‘Oh, you're like a doctor of Christmas’ and it clicked."

He became Doctor Christmas and launched his business (with a business partner, Debi Staron).

“I've done a lot of work for Kathy at her home," he says. And for her sisters, too, Kyle and Kim Richards. And, as it would go, other Housewives. “I did Adrienne Maloof. Denise Richards.” They shared a name, as it turned out.

“A funny story about Denise is that in her James Bond movie, The World is Not Enough, her name is Dr. Christmas Jones.” He says they made the connection at a party for the movie. He would go on to decorate for her then-husband, Charlie Sheen. “I’ve decorated for most of Charlie’s wives.”

Indeed, over the years Pranga conquered Hollywood, just perhaps not in the way he once dreamed. And while not an actor, he’s certainly had a starring role in the lives of many celebrities.

He's worked with Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, whom he describes in one word: "FUN," and with holiday icons like Mariah Carey. "Honestly, I met her through a car window, but she knew what she wanted," he recalls.

For John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, he says, “Initially, it was a little more of Chrissy’s style. She liked a lot of the golds and the pinks and a very feminine type of tree. When the kids came, then it became classic Christmas.” He remains struck by their authenticity. “I was amazed at how relaxed they really are as people. I mean, while we decorated, they were sitting on the sofa doing their grocery list. It showed me that I've been in this town too long. I said, ‘You guys do your own grocery shopping?’ And Chrissy says, ‘Well, who else is gonna do it?’”

He's also decorated for the infamous: Anna Nicole Smith.

“It was in the early 2000s, and I was working with Leeza Gibbons, decorating her house for an Extra shoot. I told her, ‘Anna Nicole called me about being on the show.’ And she looked at me and she says, ‘Honey, you have to do it.’  We knew, well, what a train wreck it was at the time. “She told me, more people watch her than all of our shows combined.”

“Anna Nicole, Howard, Bobby Trendy, they were all there. Her tree... well, she wanted white and hot pink." He takes a sip and swallows hard. "It couldn't have been more Jayne Mansfield if you tried. It was all very Anna.”

Related: What Really Happened to Anna Nicole Smith? The Loves, the Lies and Her Over-the-Top Life (Exclusive)

He’s also done the legendary: Beyoncé.

“I got a call from her assistant that they decided they wanted to spend Christmas in Malibu... three days before Christmas," he says of the Carter family. "It was a fascinating thing to me because I went out there and it was like a movie set. All these people were hired to make this house perfect before they got there for Christmas Eve. We had less than 24 hours to prepare her home.” He got a simple direction: Christmas in Africa. Beautiful colors and prints.

“Beyoncé is just a lovely lady. She's very chill. People are always looking for those wonderful or horrible stories of celebrities. But I get to see these people as people at home.”

He’s done fellow Midwesterners: Christina Applegate.

“She's from the same part of the world that I am. I got hired by her because I started set decorating her television show a few years ago. Every year she says, ‘I’ve saved money all year to spend on my Christmas elves.’”

And he’s done Paris Hilton.

“I’ve decorated her home many times over the years.” He says that Kathy taught him so much at the beginning of his career and that Paris has now, toward the end, done the same. “The lower half of her house is public Paris Hilton. Her upstairs is private Paris Hilton. Downstairs we do the gold and the pinks, and 'that's hot,' and all that lot. What I’ve I learned from her is the art of the show.”

Who he hasn't done is Cher. "I have not made it until I've decorated for her," he says of the musical legend.

Here at the end of the year, Pranga is summoning the Ghost of Christmas Future. He's thinking of what’s next for him. "I had an epiphany this year. the holidays can be about reinvention, too. Whatever I do, Christmas will always be a part of me." He thinks his life story is a good movie. "I'm working on a screenplay."

“I'm not the new kid on the block anymore.” The next generation is circling, he says. “They think they can do it better than the person that just did it. A lot of times, that's true. I've never said I'm the best Christmas decorator on the planet. There are a lot of people who are far better than I am. But what I do well is figuring out who you are and providing the right experience. Did it make you happy? It's not necessarily always about the design. I mean, let's be honest, it's a tree.”

Back in my apartment, he tells me, “When I look at your Christmas tree, all I see are strings.”

He reaches out and starts to wrap the ornaments around the branches. “See, now you see them. Your entire tree will look differently if you get rid of the strings.”

He launches into his critique, said in one breath in about 60 seconds:

“Your tree leans a bit to the left. I could fix that visually with some ribbon. Someone with OCD decorated this because it’s all decorated very symmetrical. It’s a lovely little tree but you need to understand that with a tree you need to have stars, the co-stars, the feature players and the extras. And what you’re lacking are the extras. The extras are the basic round balls. Pick the color that you like, that would tie it all together. Then you put those deeper into the tree, throughout the thing and it really punches it all out. When I look at this tree, there's a lot of pastels. You can put gold in there, silver in there, pink under there, red, any color you really want. Or you can make it multicolored if you want to do it that way, with all the different stuff. But just basic, clean, round balls. It would help because the center of this tree is so, so dark. You have clear, white lights, like for hotels and public buildings, they can be commercial and cold. Multi-colored lights are for the sophisticated crowd, I always use color lights, people who do, they like the magic of Christmas. They're more childlike. Clear lights, well they can be for cold, showy people." He exhales.

I tell him I have one more question and gingerly bring up something controversial: tinsel. He shakes his head.

“That type of decorating is what I call Christmas by the pound, where everything is covered," he says. Hallmark uses this a lot in their films," he explains of the company, with whom he's worked for years on movies and events.

"It's a lot of decoration on those sets, where there's a Christmas tree in the men's room. I mean, really? But it's a big fantasy-scape. The reason their films are successful is because the films are beautiful. The actor's clothing, the food, the walls, the décor, they all flow together in kind of a seamless manner."

"They even have an official Pantone Hallmark Red," he adds. (For those wondering, Dr. Christmas's favorite Hallmark Christmas movie is To All a Good Night.)

What should I not put on this tree, I ask him.

“What I hate on any tree ever is plaid. Plaid anything.” He pauses. “And little figurines, like Star Wars movie characters. They don’t provide any theme and they're hard to work with because they're too small. They don't make any impact.” He shudders at the thought and takes a swig of his Coke Zero.

He turns and walks to my door and then pauses and turns around slowly, and looks up and down my tree like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.

“Do I see... Baby Yoda on your tree? See, Christmas is always about your past!"

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