On Tuesday, most of the Swedish royal family were at the annual gathering of the Swedish Academy at the Stockholm’s Stock Exchange.
Click here for more images
Founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, the Swedish Royal Academy is a cultural institution meant to promote Swedish language and literature.
Everyone, minus Princess Madeleine, showed up for the formal gathering. Crown Princess Victoria wore a lovely black velvet dress which showed her baby bump nicely.
Her mother, Queen Silvia, recently spoke to Svensk Damtidning about her daughter’s pregnancy.
“She should take it easy and give herself more personal time,” said Silvia.
The Queen also spoke happily about the prospects of being a grandmother.
“It will be wonderful, very fun!” she said, adding that she looks forward to babysitting the future royal baby.
Crown Princess Victoria is due in March. The child, regardless of gender, will be second in line to the throne behind her.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge stopped Centrepoint this Wednesday, to bake Christmas desserts with the charity’s beneficiaries. Prince William is patron of Centrepoint, which focuses on helping homeless youth.
Click here to see more photos at Daylife.com
The Prince also was the star of the evening when he busted out his hip-hop dance moves. It happened when 18 year old Vanessa Boateng told His Royal Highness what she thought of his Irish Guards uniform that he wore for his April wedding to Catherine.
“William asked us what we thought about what he wore to his wedding. He said, was his suit dapper?” said Boateng.
“I said: ‘No, your swag was on point.’ He repeated my words and said ‘swag’, then he started doing this dance.”
The dance involves brushing imaginary dust off your shoulders as another person does the same. It is supposed to mean that you have trendy clothes.
Later on, William and Ms. Boateng did the dance – now known as the “Swag Dance” – for the rest of the 80 residents of the shelter.
This move will clearly make the Duke more popular with those benefiting form Centrepoint. He has been patron since 2005 and used to visit the shelters as a child with his mother, the late Princess Diana.
And Centrepoint may be a tradition for future royal generations.
“He said he’s going to make his children come there and I can discipline them,” Boateng revealed, according to the Telegraph.
But William was not the only royal warming hearts at the shelter. His wife, Catherine, made a cookie for Tasha Barbi’s 18th birthday.
“She said ‘This is for you, your birthday cookie’,” Miss Barbi explained.
“I love it, I’m never going to eat it, it’s beautiful I’m going to cherish it.”
Crown Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde of Belgium were in Liege Tuesday for a memorial for those who were killed in last week’s grenade and shooting attack. Six people were killed, including the prepatrator, Nordine Amrani. 125 people were also injured.
View more photos from the event here
Their Royal Highnesses laid a wreath at the Place Lambert, where photos of the victims were placed. They joined several politicians, including Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, and about three thousand people for three minutes of silence.
Philippe and Mathilde then met with the crowds and families of the victims.
At one point during the ceremony, emergency services arrived and played the Irish song “Danny Boy”.
The motive for Amrani’s attack is still not clear, though it is believed he was afraid to face drug offense charges. He had already spent time in jail for previous offenses.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, along with Prince Harry, were at the Sun Military Awards Monday night. It was a night to honor British troops for their service to the United Kingdom.
Check out more images of the event here
William and Harry wore tuxedos, while Catherine looked amazing in a black velvet strapless Alexander McQueen gown. She also wore an impressive necklace that was a wedding gift from a not-yet revealed person.
The trio chatted with servicemen and women at the Imperial War Museum before the actual ceremony. It was then Harry gave a speech where he both praised the troops and talked about his military career. The 27 year old Prince had spent the past several weeks in the United States learning to fly Apache helicopters.
He said: “I am a young Army officer, a serving soldier. Like my brother, I share many of the same hopes, the same aspirations to go on operations, and the same fears as all those who serve our Queen and country.
“By an accident of birth, though, it falls to 564673 Captain Wales humbly to express – on behalf of my comrades-in-arms and people up and down the country – the admiration we feel for the extraordinary men and women we honor here tonight.”
He added: “It’s often said of our armed forces that they are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Well, I don’t entirely buy that. Ordinary people don’t run out under withering enemy rocket and heavy machine gunfire to rescue a wounded comrade.
“Ordinary people don’t brave monsoon conditions dangling on a winch line to rescue 13 people, each in turn.
“For that matter, ordinary people don’t put their lives on the line for distant folk, such as the Afghans, who need our help and are now turning their country round because of it.”
Harry also spoke warmly of the families of the troops.
“The strength and courage it must take to see your husband or your wife, your father or mother, son or daughter, head off into the unknown – and to support them doing it – I can hardly even imagine,” he said. “So, to our amazing, brave families, I know I join every single service man and woman in saying from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.”
The Sun Military Awards, or Millies as Britons call it, were also attended by soccer star David Beckham, along with sons Brooklyn and Cruz, Gordon Ramsay, Jimmy Carr, and Frank Lampard.
Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg were also there. They held a reception at 10 Downing Street and Clegg said this to the troops: “You shouldn’t just be proud of the servicemen and women with you in your work, and you shouldn’t just be proud on behalf of your families and communities but I hope you do also know that you make the whole nation very, very proud indeed.”
The Norwegian royal family are the latest to release Christmas photos this year. In the past, themes included playing outdoors and building a gingerbread house.
For 2011, this theme was simple. Queen Sonja read How The Snow Got Color by Dan Lindholm to her two grandchildren, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. The Princess, who will be 8 next month, listened intently while her 6 year old brother was more interested in the large Christmas tree behind them.
The Queen and Crown Princess Mette-Marit wore traditional Norwegian clothing for the photo shoot.
For Christmas this year, King Harald V and Sonja will join Crown Prince Haakon and Mette-Marit at their home outside Oslo at Skaugum Palace.
Saudi billionaire and nephew to the King, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud announced Monday that he and his investment company will pump $300 million into the social networking site, Twitter.
Click here for more photos
“We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend,” Ahmed Halawani, the Kingdom Holding Co. executive director of private equity and international investments, said in a statement.
Prince Alwaleed has a history investing in the media, particularly with News Corp. With this investment, he now owns 3 percent of Twitter. It is unknown at this point how much he will control it. The micro blogging site had a lot to do with this year’s Arab Spring, which saw demonstrations across the Arab world, bringing down four leaders.
Alwaleed, who ranked as the 26th wealthiest man in the world, probably took up investing Twitter possibly because of it being high profiled.
“It is … an investment into a well recognized brand with future growth potential,” said Said Hirsh, a Mideast economist.
According to Fortune, the Prince did not directly invest into Twitter, but bought shares from existing investors.
This past Friday saw Princess Stephanie of Monaco stop by the Hector Otto Foundation, which is a nursing home. She was there to give out Christmas presents to the elderly at the home.
It appears that Monaco’s Princely family are very generous during the Christmas season. Last week, Stephanie’s brother and sister-in-law, Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene, gave out gifts to the children of Monaco at the royal palace.
On Sunday, the King of Jordan presided over the 10th anniversary of the King Abdullah Fund for Development (KAFD). The fund serves over a million people throughout the Hashemite Kingdom.
During the ceremony, King Abdullah awarded several private and public sectors and civil institutions which support the KAFD.
His Majesty also honored students from the Samma Comprehensive Girls School and the National School for Girls for their winning of a software applications development contest. The competition had girls between the ages of 15 and 17 to develop cell phone programs and applications.
The King Abdullah Fund for Development began in 2001 and was set up in order to support Jordan through human and infrastructure development.
In Berlin Saturday, Her Serene Highness Princess Charlene of Monaco was the recipient of the golden heart award at the Ein Herz fur Kinder (A Heart for Children) ceremony. She won for teaching poor and handicapped children to swim in her native South Africa.
Check out more photos here
The German publication, Bild, interviewed Charlene about how she spent years teaching young girls to swim. The Princess is a former Olympic swimmer, so in more ways than one, she was a good teacher for them.
“The feeling that it is worthwhile to fight for something, I wanted to pass on,” she told the magazine. Charlene won her first medal in a swimming competition at age 8.
“Charlene gave me confidence. She gave me the feeling of being valuable,” said 21 year old Beth, who represented South Africa during the 2008 Paralympics. Beth suffered from polio as a baby, but had the now Monegasque Princess to help her.
“It was Beth’s love for swimming and her incredible will to want to reach more and more,” Charlene explained to Bild. “It may be more about the reward than the joy in their eyes you can not get.”
Recently, she began the Princess Charlene Foundation which is meant to help the disadvantaged.
“I want to pass on some of my happiness,” she said.
In addition to winning recognition for her charity work, the Princess was nominated by the World Open Water Swimming Association for her participation in this year’s Midmar Mile race and for influencing open water swimming.
The three children of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain have released the Christmas photographs of their families. Infanta Elena, Infanta Cristina and Prince Felipe all are showing how much their children have grown up.
Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia posed with their two daughters, Infantas Leonor and Sofia. The couple switch each pose each year. One year, their Christmas photo has just their two girls, the next year has their parents with them, and repeat.
Meanwhile, Elena used a photo of her two children, Felipe Frolian and Victoria, without her.
Infanta Cristina used a picture from third son’s Juan’s first communion this year. Some royal fans were disappointed not to see an original photo. However, it should be noted husband Iñaki Urdangarin is in this. Urdangarin is caught up in a scandal that caused him to be removed from the royal family.
Recent Comments