Celebrate the Holidays With Christmas Dinner at Downton Abbey

For diehard Downton Abbey fans, Christmas won’t be celebrated on December 25 this year. That’s because this year, Highclere Castle, the real-life country estate where much of the beloved show was filmed, is open for a special Christmas dinner on December 15, according to Architectural Digest.

With the help of a company called Premium Tours, you can celebrate the holidays like a Crawley (or at least the Downton cast) on the 5000-acre estate in Hampshire, England, roughly 60 miles outside of London, exploring the castle you've seen countless times on TV.

Each ticket gets you transportation to the estate and back again from London. Once you’ve arrived and grabbed some champagne and canapés, you’ll wander around the castle’s saloon, smoking room, drawing room, and temporary Egyptian exhibition, with official guides on hand to answer questions and talk about the house’s history, architecture, and art. You’ll be served a three-course meal with wine, with dishes like Lady Carnarvon charred salmon and avocado tian leaf salad (one of the sample appetizers) and baked goat’s cheese, pine kernels, and red onion puree wrapped in filo pastry with watercress foam (a sample second course). Once you’re stuffed with Christmas pudding, you’ll be treated to a performance by a group of carolers.

From pick-up to drop-off, you’ll have eight hours and 30 minutes of aristocratic fun. You’ll need to dress the part, though. The event page specifies formal dress, with suits and ties for men and cocktail dresses for ladies.

Tickets are priced at $625, but if you book now, you can snag them for $155 apiece. Sounds like the perfect way to spend your year-end bonus. Hopefully, that will tide you over until the long-awaited Downton Abbey movie premieres next year.

[h/t Architectural Digest]