5 sparkly royal moments from 2017

The presents are given, the turkey's been eaten, the tree is looking a little tired. Sometimes, the day after Christmas can leave us all feeling slightly less sparkly than we'd like. So to up the glitter factor, here's a look back at five of the most twinkling royal moments of 2017. It's got history, it's got romance, it's got a wall of diamonds so big you might have nightmares. Welcome to 5 sparkly moments from the Royal 2017....

1. Meghan makes her mark

It's easily the most famous royal gem moment of the year so therefore the sparkliest. Just hours after announcing their engagement on November 27th 2017, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle snuggled for snaps in the White Garden at Kensington Palace where we got a first glimpse of THE engagement ring. It's a yellow gold band with a central diamond sourced by Harry in Botswana where the couple had their first romantic holiday. The stones on either side both belonged to Harry's mum, Diana. All the aahs and all the oohs. This is a sparkler already drenched in history.

2. Norway's birthday bonanza

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King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway celebrated their 80th birthdays with a mega royal party in Oslo in May and as the festivities got under way they appeared on their palace balcony with all their guests and all the tiaras. This sparkly line up included just about every favourite diadem in Europe's regal collections right now as queens, princesses, duchesses and countesses all brought their best sparkle with them for the big birthday bash. We had emeralds, diamonds, rubies and sapphires and that was before we even started counting. They even put the glittery seal on it with a stunner of a group photo. It will be a while before we get a regal turnout like that again.

3. Letizia makes good with La Buena

Queen Letizia of Spain isn't known for her jewellery. She might be the queen of fashion but her style often involves low key sparkle. That doesn't mean that when Leti wants to, she can't deliver a knockout blow. This year, the Queen of Spain made her debut in the diadem known as La Buena or the ''good one'' as it's so stunning that her royal family made sure they never parted with it even during exile. The wall of diamonds can only be worn by a queen and when Letizia hosted the President and First Lady of Argentina on a State Banquet she came over very regal indeed and made good with La Buena. It came out to play again during the successful State Visit to the United Kingdom in July. A sparkling surprise that really made its mark on the royal 2017.

4. Maxima introduces an old friend

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The First Lady of Argentina got a tour of all the royal jewellery greats during her visits to Europe this year. She turned up to a State Banquet in Amsterdam in March to find her hostess, Queen Maxima, in a cracker of a diamond necklace that hadn't been seen since the Seventies. Maxima chose the Stuart Diamond Necklace for this State Dinner. It's huge, it's gorgeous and it's got enough historical punch to keep everyone happy for months. Last seen on Queen Juliana around four decades ago, Maxima made lots of people happy with this blast from the past while making 2017 a whole lot sparklier while she was at it.

5. Diamonds snowball for the Nobels

You can't have a sparkly run down of the year without the Swedish Royal Family taking part. They have a cracking collection of tiaras at their disposal and they know how to mix them all up to keep us interested. This year, one of their main tiara events provided plenty of sparkly fun as the Nobel Prize ceremony threw up some gems of surprises. We had Victoria in aquamarines, Madeleine in amethysts, Sofia in a new version of her wedding tiara....and Silvia in her prong tiara. Well, three out of four as surprises isn't bad. They did it all again the next day with more diamonds. It's just all so sparkly and lovely, there's nothing not to enjoy about it and it brought a shimmering royal 2017 to a truly glittering end. If that doesn't make you twinkle, I don't know what will.