Christmas is a festive time, full of joyful decoration and splendour. Families are brought together, gathered round trees wrapped in delicate baubles and glowing fairy lights and sat in front of roaring hearths strung with evergreen garland.
It is no different at Windsor Castle, the royal family's ancestral home. Unveiled by the Royal Collection Trust last Thursday, the Castle's State Apartments have been kitted out with every Christmas trimming imaginable: pine trees laden with baubles and shiny tinsel sit in the Crimson Drawing Room, banquet tables in the Waterloo Chamber are laid with fruits and wintry foliage, swathed in bushels of holly are the Grand Staircase's railings. The Castle's Christmas crowning jewel is bedecked Christmas tree in St George's Hall. Harvested from Windsor Great Park, the Nordmann fir is decorated with an abundance of lights and ornaments and stands six meters tall. Throughout the entire Castle, there is an extra sense of occasion, too, as this Christmas is the first under King Charles III's reign.
Visitors can see the Castle's ornate Christmastime decoration themselves every Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday until 2 January 2023 (excluding 25 and 26 December, however). For added festivity, choir singers and carollers will perform an array of Christmas songs on 8, 9 and 12 December at the foot of the Christmas tree in St George's Hall.
