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Denmark

A big family Christmas for Queen Margrethe this year – with one major tradition

The Danish Royal Family are some of the most open when it comes to details on how they celebrate the Christmas holidays. Ahead of the festive season, they always send out a press release about their Christmas plans.

The Danish royals spend the holiday at Marselisborg Palace in Aarhus. It has been the tradition since Queen Margrethe took the throne in 1972 and the family will stick to it in 2023.

Roughly every other year, the Crown Prince Family (Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary, Prince Christian, Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent, and Princess Josephine) will travel to Australia to spend Christmas with Crown Princess Mary’s family so that the children get to spend the holiday with their maternal family, as well as their paternal family.

However, this year they will be at Marselisborg along with Queen Margrethe’s younger son, Prince Joachim. Along with his wife, Princess Marie, and their two children, Count Henrik and Countess Athena, he will celebrate with his mother. One of his sons from his first marriage, Count Felix, will also join them. Joachim’s eldest child, Count Nikolai, will be in Australia where he’s been living for several months.

Over the past several years, the Crown Prince and Princess’ family has also released a Christmas greeting video where they are decorating a Christmas tree or cookies, following in the footsteps of their Swedish counterparts (Crown Princess Victoria and her family).

And a new tradition, started by Queen Margrethe, will also continue. In the past years, the longest reigning monarch in Europe has been at the heart of a special social media advent calendar which counts down the days to Christmas with peeks inside royal homes.

About author

Brittani is from Tennessee, USA. She is a political scientist and historian after graduating with a degree in the topics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in December 2014. She also holds a master's degree from Northeastern University. She enjoys reading and researching all things regarding the royals of the world. She's been researching, reading, and writing on royalty for over a decade. She became Europe Editor in October 2016, and then Deputy Editor in January 2019, and has been featured on several podcasts, radio shows, news broadcasts and websites including Global News Canada, ABC News Australia, WION India and BBC World News.