Christmas at Fredensborg

The royal family are celebrating Christmas and their big family gathering at Fredensborg. It is the first time the whole family has gathered together en masse since 2000, just after the death of Queen Ingrid. So for Mary, it is her first 'whole family' Christmas and she and Frederik have embraced the opportunity to host everyone at The Chancellory House. They have already had a 'pre-Christmas' party yesterday for everyone at their house. Today the royal family is attending a church service in the chapel at Fredensborg at 4.30pm before the big Christmas dinner hosted by Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik. The Christmas tree has been placed in the dome hall at Fredensborg. Also, it is the first time the new palace chef is preparing the food for the feast. As all this is happening inside the palace, any photos, including Frederik and Mary's Christmas card might take a while to surface. We will post whatever we can when we can as always. Marie Cavallier is spending Christmas Eve with her mother and step-father in Geneva and then going to Paris to spend Christmas Day with her father and grandmother. The guests will stay until December 26 and 27 and then Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik will go to Frijsenborg Manor for the annual Christmas hunt. On December 28 the Queen and Prince Henrik will take up their winter residence at Amalienborg and will see in the new year from there. As usual, the Queen will give her annual new year address from there. And then, we will have come full circle on this blog. Our first post was the Queen's New Year address for 2006. We would like to wish you our readers the very best for the season. After the New Year address the Danish royals swing into action on January 1 for the New Year Courts. In the meantime, we will be posting more year-in-review posts and we might be lucky and find some other things we can post too! Seasons greetings!

1. The Christmas decorations at the front door of The Chancellory House, and 2. a Christmas past when Queen Ingrid was alive, with Anne-Marie, Margrethe and Benedikte, and 3. it is Christian's first Christmas where he is starting to know what is going on and what is what, and 4. the Greek Royal Family Christmas photograph.