Aspen Grange Daydream: Christmas in Scotland

Image courtesy The Fife Arms Hotel, one of the world’s best Christmas hotels.

When Queen Victoria scooped herself up a vacation cottage in 1852 (and by cottage, we mean what’s now the 50,000 acre Balmoral Castle estate), the verdant stretch of Scottish highlands surrounding it became a coveted destination for the masses. Enter: The Fife Arms, a 19th century hotel that’s been recently reborn anew—and is undeniably one of the world’s best Christmas hotels. (You know it’s good when the artisans and architects enlisted to zhush a formerly tired property include historic researchers, artists and even tartan designers.)

Image courtesy The Fife Arms Hotel, one of the world’s best Christmas hotels

And while every room is a dream, I’m personally a bit obsessed with the 614-square-foot royal suites, which alone would make this among the world’s best Christmas hotels. They’re well curated enough to wow a Middleton—stocked with antiques, copper soaking tubs, rain showers, and flickering fireplaces. The Scottish Culture rooms, too, are exquisite—and inspired by the lives and works of everyone from Lord Byron (a “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” legend of the Romantic movement) and suffragette Elsie Inglis, who founded the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in World War I. Is it too much to ask to take a Christmas trudge in the misty moors, before retiring to my canopy bed for a cuppa?

At the holidays, the recently revamped hotel—owned by art world power couple Iwan and Manuela Wirth—offers an elegant array of activities for all ages, whether you’d like to ride a horse-drawn carriage, sing carols or join your children on a Christmas treasure hunt. Adding to the allure for this world’s best Christmas hotel: exploits galore in the surrounding region, including the Grampian Mountains, centuries-old villages and Cairngorms National Park. The nearby arctic mountains and deep pine forests are home to ptarmigan, golden eagles, and—most Christmassy of all—actual reindeer herds. Swoon.

Thefifearms.com; doubles from $505 a night