By TATSURO SUGIURA/ Staff Writer
November 17, 2021 at 19:12 JST
Princess Aiko enters the Imperial Palace by car in Tokyo on Jan. 1. (Pool)
Princess Aiko, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, will celebrate her 20th birthday on Dec. 1 along with other festivities to follow four days later.
The government approved at a Cabinet meeting on Nov. 16 that it will award the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Precious Crown to Aiko on her birthday for reaching adulthood.
It is a common practice for ceremonies to celebrate imperial family members becoming an adult to be held on a birthday.
But as Aiko needs to attend her classes at her university, the Imperial Household Agency announced that her ceremonies will be held on Dec. 1 and Dec. 5.
Female imperial family members typically start to wear tiaras after they become adults. But Aiko won’t get a new tiara and will borrow one from Sayako Kuroda, the emperor’s younger sister, to wear at her ceremonies.
According to the imperial family’s close aides, Aiko and her parents took into consideration the worsening situation of economic activities and people’s daily lives amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
It has not been decided if Aiko will receive her own tiara in the future.
On her birthday, after she receives congratulations from the Grand Steward of the Imperial Household Agency and other people at the Imperial Palace from the early evening, she will have a special dinner with her parents.
On Dec. 5, she will visit the three shrines in the Imperial Court to offer prayers from the morning.
In the afternoon, she will visit the Sento temporary imperial residence to see her grandparents, Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko.
After that, she will celebrate along with other imperial family members and the heads of the three branches of government at the Imperial Palace. But food or drinks will not be served due to the pandemic.
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