Queen Maxima’s Festive Christmas Gala Earrings in Leusden

Queen Máxima followed up last week’s brilliant tiara appearance in the Netherlands with an event full of holiday cheer: the annual Christmas Music Gala.

On Thursday, Queen Máxima headed to Leusden in Utrecht for the recording of the annual Christmas Music Gala. The event, coordinated by an organization called Méér Muziek in de Klas, promotes music and arts education for students in the Netherlands and the Caribbean.

Máxima is the honorary chair of Méér Muziek in de Klas, and during the gala she spoke about the importance of cultural education for young people. The event featured performances from Dutch students alongside established, popular Dutch artists, including Sor, Numidia, Roxeanne Hazes, Emma Kok, and Paul de Leeuw.

For this year’s gala, Máxima wore an ensemble in shades of green and black. She arrived wearing a warm black coat over a black velvet top and sequin-covered trousers, both made by Natan.

She added sparkle with a pair of statement earrings. These earrings, with their checkerboard fringe design, have been in Máxima’s jewelry box for the better part of a decade.

The earrings feature opaque white gemstones (moonstones, many have guessed) alternating with colored stones. It’s really difficult to discern the actual shade of those colorful gems in most of the pictures of the earrings, but I believe these are green gemstones, perhaps emeralds.

One of Máxima’s early appearances in the earrings came in April 2017, when she wore them for a special 50th birthday dinner given in honor of her husband, King Willem-Alexander. The green tone of the gems is easy to see in this photograph.

We’ve also seen Máxima wear the earrings with green-toned outfits and other green jewels. Here, she pairs the earrings and the cluster ring from the Dutch Emerald Parure during a visit to Jakarta in March 2020.

And here, she goes for a whole green-checkerboard theme during the Spanish state visit to Amsterdam in April 2024. The dress seems deliberately chosen to echo the design of the earrings.

Here’s another look at the earrings with Maxima’s black and green ensemble for the Christmas gala. She’s also wearing bracelets on both wrists, including her diamond wedding bracelet on her left wrist and her diamond family initial bracelet on her right. You’ll also spot her famous orange diamond engagement ring on her left hand. If you’re in the Netherlands and you want to see all of Máxima’s music gala jewelry sparkling on your television screen, you can tune in to the concert airing on AVROTROS on Thursday evening.