For some, it is also a time of extravagance.
This Christmas, visitors to the Kempinski Hotel Bahia, near Marbella, Spain will be treated to the sight of the hotel’s tree, decked out with diamonds, precious stones and designer jewelry.
Decorated with red, white, pink and black diamonds, the tree, designed by Debbie Wingham, is worth a staggering £11.9 million ($15 million), according to the hotel.
As well as diamonds, the tree is embellished with upcycled jewelry from Bulgari, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Chanel, 3D-printed chocolate peacocks, feathers, ostrich eggs and bottles of perfume.
The Kempinski’s festive fir is the latest in a short but very sparkly line of decadently decorated trees.
In 2010, The Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi adorned a tree in bracelets, necklaces and watches — to the tune of $11 million, winning it a Guinness World Record for most expensively decorated tree.
And in 2016, Tokyo jewelers Ginza Tanaka displayed a Christmas tree made from 4,000 feet of gold wire, worth an estimated 200 million yen ($1.8 million).
