How to Celebrate the Succession of the Throne: Festive Ideas for the Whole Family

Most likely, many have planned to celebrate when H.M. Queen Margrethe II on Sunday, January 14, hands over the throne to her son, Crown Prince Frederik, who will thus become King Frederik X.

Many probably intend to make the trip to Copenhagen to watch up close or to participate in the festivities at Kongens Nytorv, organized by TV2 and DR.

Others – and that’s probably most of us – will sit and watch on TV when Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen proclaims Frederik as king from the balcony of Christiansborg.

But you can make the whole thing a bit more festive at home with the family. Here are ideas on how you can make the change of throne fun and festive.

Decorate

You can decorate your home festively with gold crowns, Danish flags, balloons, streamers, and confetti.

Dress up

Bring out the fancy dresses and nice shirts. Both young and old can dress up as kings, queens, princes, and princesses. Create medals and orders from aluminum foil and colored cardboard. Make crowns out of gold cardboard and tiaras out of headbands adorned with beads, aluminum foil balls, etc.

Eat and drink like royalty

Set up a beautiful and festive lunch table. Tall glasses for the juice that can stand in for wine, lovely table decorations with candles and crowns. Tablecloth and napkins with napkin rings, possibly made of aluminum foil. Serve the food on platters and place the platters on stands, such as those made from bowls wrapped in aluminum foil. You can quickly make three halves of open-faced sandwiches look impressive when presented nicely.

Bubbles and cake

When Frederik is proclaimed king, it’s perfect to celebrate with bubbles and cake – it could be a large, beautifully homemade cake with a royal crown drawn in icing, marzipan cakes, or maybe just an almond tart decorated with gold and silver sprinkles. The possibilities are many. Serve ‘bubbles’ in the form of, for example, elderflower syrup mixed in sparkling water. It should, of course, be in champagne glasses.

Create a quiz

Prepare a quiz for the family with facts about the royals. Questions could be, for example, “How old is the new king?”, “How many years did Queen Margrethe II reign?”, “In which city is Amalienborg Palace located?” etc.

Charades

A fun game for young and old is “guess and charades”. Some cards are prepared in advance, with a sentence related to the day’s theme, such as “Crown Prince drives in a carriage like a king.” Participants take turns drawing a card, reading it, and using gestures to show what’s on the card. It’s not allowed to say anything. The other participants then try to guess what it was that was on the card. A judge decides if the answer was close enough to what was on the card.

Ideas for sentences: “Queen Mary drops her tiara and has to bend down to pick it up”, “King Frederik sees himself on a coin and gets happy”, “King Frederik gives a New Year’s speech on TV”.

You can probably come up with more good ideas to make the change of throne festive.

This article has been created in collaboration with Hjem & Familie.