So, One's armed forces decided to throw One a bit of a party in honor of one's sixty years on the throne...

Fondant fish scales for a military event?  Why not!  Lesson of the year: if you're the Diamond Queen, you do what you want.

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Ducking out of hiatus briefly to note that it was super nice of HM to honor couples celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary by plopping a big wedding cake on top of her noggin.  Cheers, Lil!

PHOTO: Lewis Whyld-WPA Pool/Getty Images

HM ventured out on Leap Day to open a new wing at Somerset House, and it's always appropriate to don feathers while opening a wing, no?  (Har har.)

But really, honestly, I wasn't going to spend much time talking about this repeated topper until the style bloggers over at the Huffington Post called it "one of her signature fascinators."  Fascinator?  Oh, dear.  It's a bit like the square/rectangle rule: all fascinators are hats, but not all hats are fascinators!  Pull up a chair to the table, darlings, and let the hat blogger have the floor...

PHOTO CREDITS: Eddie Mulholland - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Happy Accession Day, Your Maj!  60 years and counting!

We've got a rather gigantic hat from Lil for the second day running -- I don't think we've seen this one since its outing at last year's Braemar festivities. 

I've got a theory, though, on why we're getting such big hats from HM this jubilee-kickoff week: she's totally smuggling the Imperial State Crown under there, right? 

PHOTO CREDITS: ARTHUR EDWARDS/AFP/Getty Images

No, no, this isn't a photo of two Russian grannies hanging out in Siberia in January -- it's the Queen and Princess Anne, braving the freezing temps in England to kick off this year's Diamond Jubilee festivities by doing one of my favorite royal activities:

A royal tree planting!  Hooray!

The queen's jubilee year formally begins on Monday, the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.  We'll be celebrating with the royals all year here at MH, too -- I've got a series of Jubilee Hattery Flashbacks queued up, and we'll be playing along as the royals go hither and thither to various events across the Commonwealth.  Get excited, hatters!

PHOTO CREDITS: ARTHUR EDWARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Okay, for real, who thought that using Batman characters as  hattery inspiration was even a little bit okay?  Tsk, tsk...

PHOTO CREDITS: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Wow, that's a lot of gold brocade.  I'm just going to leave it at that.

Also -- I think that's Marie-Chantal in the uber-dramatic purple chapeau behind Sonja.  Haven't seen a clearer angle on that one yet, but I like what I see.  (Watch it not even be her, LOL.)

PHOTO CREDITS: PPE

Let's kick off our recap of the weekend's big Ruby Jubilee event with the anniversary girl herself, shall we?  I'm really liking the snow queen aspect of this chapeau -- Daisy needs to do monochrome in daywear more often.  (A little on the baldy side, though.)

PHOTO CREDITS: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Far more exciting than this hat (yaaaaawn) is the fact that there was apparently a mishap in planning with the tides at the Port of Dubai, and Queen Cake nearly had to swim ashore to get off the thing.  Somehow I don't think this hat would have been able to adequately protect the Royal Hair-Do, so thank goodness the gang plank finally worked...

PHOTO CREDITS: PPE

Dashing these off before I go enjoy my own Christmas lunch -- Merry Christmas, hatters!  And I do believe that Lil has brought you a brand-new topper for the holidays.  Not my favorite -- too tall, too round, too bowler-esque.  How about the rest of you?

PHOTO CREDITS: Chris Jackson/Getty Images