Christian & Isabella @ the playground

All photos © Flemming Jeppesen/Billed Bladet

Billed Bladet has published photos of Christian and Isabella at the playground near Marselisborg Castle with their nannies Merete and Signe. Just as cousins Nikolai and Felix had proven (see post below), the playground at Memorial Park near Marselisborg was irresistable during the Christmas holiday.

Danish Royal Family @ Christmas service

© Se og Hør/Hans Bølcho

The Danish Royal Family has celebrated Christmas at Marselisborg in Århus and attended a Christmas service at the 800 year-old Århus Cathedral. The whole family attended church together this year with the exception of Isabella, who remained at home since she is still too little to last through a full church service. It is Marie's first Christmas as a princess of Denmark this year and she arrived holding Nikolai's hand. Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary attended with Christian. After the service he family returned to Marselisborg to a Christmas table of hot rice pudding and crisp duck. As Queen Margrethe told Midtjyske Medier, Christmas is an ecclesiastical festivity first of all, and then everything else is secondary. "When we...sit in the cathedral I also think now you can really think about what Christmas is really about...". The crowd gathered at the church to see the royals were given a greeting by Prince Christian. Christian was happy when he arrived, holding Mary's hand and saying "hi" to those waiting outside the cathedral.

Just as other families do, the Danish royals have their own traditions on Christmas Eve. The Queen decorated both the castle and the rather big Christmas tree, while she brought back English plum pudding when she did her Christmas shopping in London recently. Unlike most other Danish families, the Danish royals don't dance around the Christmas tree, but recite psalms and sing songs together in front of the tree. The Regent Couple's old friend Reverend Peter Parkov joined the family for Christmas as usual. The adults returned to the cathedral today, Christmas Day, without the little ones.



© Århus Stiftsidende/B.T./Martin Ballund, Århus Stiftsidende/Jens Thaysen, Se og Hør/Hans Bølcho, BilledBladet/Flemming Jeppesen/Fokus

Billed Bladet 'Marie og Nikolai i kirke hånd i hånd'
B.T. 'Jul på slottet - De kongelige tog i Århus Domkirke'
Se og Hør

Today the adults returned to the cathedral for a Christmas servic December 25:
Århus Stifstidende 'De små fik lov at blive hjemme'
The little ones stayed at home while the adults went to church on Christmas Day.
Nikolai, Felix, Christian and Isabella stayed at home to play with their Christmas presents. Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik were driven right to the door by their driver, while Crown Prince Frederik drove Joachim, Marie and Mary in a Renault.
The bells were ringing as the royals arrived and they wished the small crowd outside the cathedral a merry Christmas as they entered. Bishop Kjeld Holm gave a Christmas sermon to a full church.



Billed Bladet's front cover has Frederik's and Mary's Christmas card on its cover - taken for Frederik's 40th birthday in May this year

Århus Stifstidende photo gallery - Royal Family at Århus Cathedral
Århus Stifstidende photo gallery - the Royal Guard at Marselisborg

Billed Bladet - Joachim and Marie Christmas shopping in exclusive shops in Copenhagen, joined by Marie's friend Britt Siesbye
Marie and Joachim doing Christmas shopping in Copenhagen (PurePeople.com)
DR.dk news clip (01:00)
TV2 clip (00:51) - from the service on December 25

Danish Christmas traditions
Århus Cathedral on Wikipedia, note the Marselis family, familiar to us from the name of Marselisborg Palace, have their family vault in the cathedral

Århus Stifstidende's Pia Richter has interviewed Queen Margrethe about the royal house's Christmas traditions. The Christmas presents are bought and many Christmas cards are written by the time the Queen and Prince Henrik set out from Copenhagen to drive to Århus and Marselisborg. The Queen believes that the Christmas traditions at Marselisborg are important, exactly because they are not at Marselisborg all the time. Margrethe can't imagine celebrating Christmas in Copenhagen because she doesn't associate it with Christmas atmosphere. When she was a child the royal family celebrated Christmas Eve at the Trend hunting lodge in western Jylland (where Frederik and Mary spent Christian's birthday for the past two years).
The successor couple, Margrethe and Henrik, were given Marselisborg in 1967 by Frederik IX. Since 1969 they have spent Christmases at Marselisborg with the exception of some spent with Queen Ingrid and the big family Christmas in 2006 at Fredensborg. The Christmas tree is a spruce tree which reaches to the ceiling and is decorated on Christmas Eve morning. The Queen doesn't climb a ladder any more - "I am not 40 any more" - but everyone participates in the decorating, including the princes, Frederik and Joachim. The Queen has the last say on the colour scheme and if decorations are too old and shabby, they are thrown out. The decorations for Christmas are generally handmade by the family, by the Queen of course, and also some which Frederik and Joachim made in 1976.
Little Prince Christian made his first attempt at decorating last year with a cone. Christian stuck it on one of the lower branches, which was all he could reach... "It is claimed that I control the Christmas tree decoration relentlessly. But in fact one has to allow [participation] from early on because the tree is so big that otherwise it destroys the traditions," says the Queen of how to build involvement in the family decorating traditions.
"Otherwise it's just 'we need a little more red there', 'the blue one would go well in there', and 'there we can also use another colour', but 'we will have more red there', so that it all hangs together," as the Queen describes the process...
The Queen sees Christmas as an ecclesiastical celebration first of all, and everything else is of secondary importance. "When we come and sit in the cathedral I think that's when you can really think that it's Christmas and not all the other stuff which rushes round in one's head."
...The Queen goes down at about six o'clock and greets those watch walkings guards at the guardroom with a small Christmas present. "They have a small glass, and we wish each other happy Christmas, and then we do the same with our staff...
At eight o'clock in the evening the Christmas menu is served on Marselisborg...

Berlingske Tidende also published the interview.

Århus Stifstidende's photo gallery - photos by Axel Schütt



Update: From Billed Bladet on Nikolai and Felix out in the fresh air on December 26 enjoying themselves with their dog Winston and their nanny Merete. The princes went to the playground near Marselisborg at Memorial Park

DRF to have Christmas @ Marselisborg

Isabella, Christian and Mary in the Marselisborg replica doll's house, a christening gift to Isabella from Århus Municipality presented earlier this year.

Christmas will be a cosy affair for the Danish Royal Family this year. The Danish royals traditionally spend Christmas at Marselisborg Palace in Århus. Spokesperson for the court, Lene Balleby, has confrimed the Regent Couple will move from the winter residence of Amalienborg to Marselisborg Palace in Århus on December 22. This year Nikolai and Felix spend Christmas with Prince Joachim (they have alternate years with their mother or father), so the Regent Couple will enjoy the company of all their grandchildren, their sons and daughters-in-law. The Queen will leave Marselisborg for Copenhagen shortly before she is due to give her New Year address for television and to be ready for the series of New Year courts for 'official' Denmark, the diplomatic corps and the top echelons of the defence forces from January 1, 2009. According to Billed Bladet, Jesper Vollmer will be in charge of the royal Christmas menu. He has arranged the menu with the Prince Consort. When the Queen made her recent trip to London to do her Christmas shopping, she returned with Christmas puddings for dessert.

JydskeVestkysten.dk 'Fætter-kusinejul på Marselisborg' - Cousinly Christmas for Marselisborg
Presents will lie under the big Christmas tree at Marselisborg in Århus as the Queen gathers children, daughters-in-law and grandchildren Christmas Eve.
Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik will have the company of their four grandchildren, when they celebrate Christmas according to traditional practice at Marselisborg.
Christian, Isabella, Nikolai and Felix will have Christmas with the Regent Couple, says head of communication and public affairs for the royal house, Lene Balleby.
The two youngest, Christian, three, and Isabella, 20 months, comes in the company of their parents, Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary.
The two oldest, Prince Nikolai, nine, and Felix, six, are going with their father Prince Joachim and their step-mother ("bonus mother") Princess Marie.
The Christmas holidays will start for the Regent Couple on December 22nd, when they move residence from Amalienborg to Marselisborg.
Shortly before New Year the Queen returns to Copenhagen to be ready for her New Year speech.

Added: We know Prince Joachim has a Christmas tree production business and exports trees to Hong Kong, among other places, but Billed Bladet reports that Prince Joachim selected a specimen from his property in south Jylland and felled a Christmas tree for Alexandra. Prince Joachim chose a beautiful, big Christmas tree when he went out on his own lands to fell a tree for his ex-wife, Countess Alexandra. The tree for Alexandra was of course was a gift. The tree was then sent to Svanemøllevej in Copenhagen where Alexandra lives together with his children, Nikolai and Felix, and her husband, Martin.

Added: Billed Bladet also reports that Princess Benedikte and Queen Anne-Marie arrived in Copenhagen last Monday so that the sisters could spend some Christmassy time together. Two years ago the three sisters brought all the family together for a big Christmas at Fredensborg Palace. It won't be this way this year and each will have Christmas in their own country. But the three sisters want to share that Christmas spirit with each other, and so, for the last four days they have been together at Amalienborg. Last Monday Queen Anne-Marie arrived from London and Princess Benedikte came from Berleburg and with their big sister, Queen Margrethe, have they had a Christmassy and pleasant time together. The sisters don't meet too often. Queen Anne-Marie was not at Gråsten Palace this last summer and so it was extra important for the sisters to get some days together in December. Copenhagen is 'dressed up' up beautifully and both Queen Anne-Marie and Princess Benedikte have been on quite a few Christmas shopping trips. Queen Anne-Marie and Princess Benedikte have both stayed in Christian VIII's Palace, where they each have their own apartment. The Queen lives just on the other side of the the palace square in Christian IV's Palace, so it has been easy for all three to disappear together and meet.

Royal Family @ Marselisborg & Circus Benneweis

During the July summer holiday period Frederik, Mary, Christian and Isabella stayed at Marselisborg Palace near Århus with the Queen and Prince Henrik. And also during the stay, the family attended a performance of the 121-year-old Benneweis Circus on July 13. The circus is currently celebrating it's 121st anniversary. A few days later Frederik and Mary also stepped out for a walk with the children and Ziggy, which happened to be captured by royal photographer Gert Blume.



Photos © !Hola!, Århus Stiftstidende, Circus Benneweis and Gert Blume/Billed Bladet.

From Billed Bladet no. 29, 2008, 'Se den flotte cirkushest' - Look at that magnificent circus horse (by Ken Richter)
Mary and Frederik and their children along with the Regent Couple spent part of their summer holiday at Marselisborg in Århus. That visit normally coincides with the visit to Århus by the largest circus in Denemark, Cirkus Benneweis. The circus is less than a kilometre from Marselisborg at the beach, which also gives the elephants an opportunity to bathe in the sea.
Anyway, the Danish Royal Family showed up at a performance of the 121 year-old of Cirkus Benneweis. The current circus princess Diana Benneweis (sprechstallmeisterin) is now retiring and will be replaced by her adopted daughter, Nadia Benneweis, who presented flowers to Mary. Her twin brother presented flowers to Queen Margrethe.
Isabella and Christian were at a circus performance for the first time in their lives. It was actually only Prince Henrik who was to go to the performance, but Mary and Frederik and their children decided to join him, and when Queen Margrethe heard about that, well, she went into grandmother mode and decided to join her grandchildren. The Queen was watching the reactions of her grandchildren more than the actual show.
Benneweis had omitted a couple of loud bangs in one of the performances in order not to frighten the royal children, not that they were frightened at all. Christian was visibly fascinated and Isabella was busy watching the show, reading the programme and playing in the sawdust at the feet of the adults.
Mary considered taking Isabella home during the intermission but stayed to look at the elephants. Or more correctly, Isabella looking at a delighted Christian looking at and petting the elephants, while sucking her thumb.
The professional elephants, Titch, Lachsmith and Kenya, weren't that impressed by the DRF, they were busy munching down lots of fruit.
All in all, it was a pretty sucessful visit.
Mary said afterwards: "It was a delight. The children really enjoyed it a lot." The other princess present, Diana Benneweis said: "It's impressive. Because it's difficult to be at a circus with such small children, but the Crown Prince Couple understood how to make it interesting for the children when the little ones sometimes lost concentration. Often small children can become frigthned and start to cry but that didn't happen at all with the small Prince and Princess. Just to be on the safe side, we had omitted two bangs from the show."
She added: "We couldn't get a better birthday present."



Billed Bladet 'Tour de Christian' - Tour de Christian (by Ken Richter & Jan Bergman)
Like a true Tour de France hero Prince Christian zoomed away on his go-bicycle. He was with his parents and little sister Isabella on his own go-bicycle when on an outing near Marselisborg Castle.
At one of their first holidays Marselisborg Castle in Århus, the family set out for an excursion. Crown Prince Frederik controlled the Royal dog Ziggy, while Crown Princess Mary pushed the stroller with Princess Isabella.
And Prince Christian has become super smart to keep his balance and push himself off fast that both mother and father plus stroller and dog had to hurry to keep up.
The little fellow kicked himself forward with one burst after another, and when he got ahead a bit Prince Christian stopped short to check whether the others followed him and to be sure that he was going the right way.
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess continued on holiday in Jutland.

Benneweis Circus 'Kongeligt besøg i Århus'
B.T. 'Kongefamilien klappede elefanter'
Billed Bladet 'Isabella og Christian klappede elefanterne'
¡Hola! 'Tarde de circo para La Familia Real danesa'

Many thanks to commoner, Valentine and a special thanks to Muhler!