rideau hall

During this holiday season, beautiful natural Christmas trees light up the official residences, thanks to a donation from the Canadian Christmas Tree Growers Association (CCTGA). The Canadian-grown Fraser firs, ranging from 3 to 3.6 metres (10 to 12 feet) in height, are from the Ottawa area. ...

The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General is pleased to announce that ** Rideau Hall’s skating rink will open ** to skaters for the winter season on ** Saturday, January 10, 2015 ** (weather permitting). The general public is invited to experience this unique part of Canada’s heritage, which has been associated with the official residence since the time of Lord Dufferin, who was governor general from 1872 to 1878. ...

Thanks to Arne Berg for sending along this great shot of Kate at Rideau Hall today. You can check out more of Arne’s photos here. (And in the interest of balance, if you can’t stand all this Royal Tour talk, check out these two Twitter feeds for a good dose Royal Smartass: @iscoff and @theodotblog ) ...

Royal watchers are already staking out their positions in downtown Ottawa, getting set to greet Will & Kate when they arrive later this afternoon. CBC reported that people were at the memorial as early as 5:00am . The RCMP is asking people not to bring tents to Parliament Hill if they’re going to camp out overnight. ...

** Read earlier in the week on the Ottawa Citizen's [ The Ed Board ](http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/edboard) blog that Governor General David Johnston is a regular jogger with a local running group in Wellington West. How cool is it that you can just run into (pardon the pun) our head of state when you're out for some exercise in the morning? ...