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Denmark

Queen Margrethe to spend Christmas with her sister as sons head overseas

After a year-long celebration marking her Golden Jubilee, Queen Margrethe’s Christmas festivities will be much more low-key, the Danish Royal Court announced Wednesday.

Queen Margrethe and Princess Benedikte are poised to celebrate Christmas Eve together at Djursland with private friends while spending the wider holiday period from 21 to 30 December at Marselisborg Castle in Aarhus.

The Crown Prince Family, Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary and their children, Prince Christian, Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, will spend the holidays in Australia.

This will be the first time Crown Princess Mary has been able to travel to her homeland of Australia for an extended period with her family in five years. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the Crown Prince Family routinely switched back and forth between Denmark and Australia for holidays.

As Crown Princess Mary arrived for an engagement at the Copenhagen City Hall, she was overheard talking about her family’s plans for the holidays, revealing that she’s excited to be going to Australia. She said, “We are looking forward to the reunion with Australia and celebrating Christmas with my family. It has been many years.”

Finally, Prince Joachim and Princess Marie will spend the holidays with their family on a “long-planned trip abroad over Christmas,” according to the Royal Court. No clarifications were offered regarding where Prince Joachim’s family plans to go.

Countess Alexandra’s spokesperson confirmed with Danish tabloid Billed Bladet that her two sons, Princes Nikolai and Felix, will spend the holidays with their father while she spends it with good friends.

Earlier this fall, Queen Margrethe made a shock announcement that she would remove the titles of her grandchildren through Prince Joachim from 1 January 2023, with the decision receiving mixed reactions from her son’s family.

Queen Margrethe is poised to give her annual New Year’s Eve speech from Christian IX’s Palace.

About author

Jess Ilse is the Assistant Editor at Royal Central. She specialises in the British, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Royal Families and has been following royalty since Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee. Jess has provided commentary for media outlets in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Jess works in communications and her debut novel THE MAJESTIC SISTERS will publish in Fall 2024.