Life at the Oxfordshire mansion, a 300-year-old Baroque property set in 2,000 acres of Capability Brown-designed parkland, boasting the most extensive collections of portraits, furniture, sculpture and tapestries in Europe. For the first time cameras have been given unprecedented access to its most important season - Christmas. Around 250,000 visitors are expected to flock to marvel at the breathtaking state rooms and sprawling grounds transformed into an unrecognisable winter wonderland. The palace's army of staff, volunteers and specialist teams have under three weeks to install seasonal cheer on a colossal scale.

Seasonal preparations at Palladian stately home Holkham Hall, which is surrounded by a walled park, a 25,000-acre estate and 11 miles of north Norfolk coastline. This year, the Countess of Leicester, announces there is no theme to Christmas and, instead, each state room will boast its own eclectic identity, though the great drawing room becomes a tribute to the late Queen with a Jubilee-inspired red, white and blue tree of gifts. Lady Leicester leads a design team in a frenetic rush to decorate a quarter of a mile of grand saloons, dining rooms and marble halls to pull off a festive stately experience like no other.