Last week, Buckingham Palace confirmed something widely assumed: the Princess of Wales would attend the Windsors’ Christmas festivities in Norfolk this year. It was at last year’s Christmas celebrations where everything seemed to go wrong for Kate. On Christmas Day, she appeared on the church-walk with her kids and husband, and Kensington Palace was dutifully briefing everyone about Kate’s plans to be keen in 2024 and go on a tour in Italy, and then suddenly Kate was hospitalized and in the wind for months. So she’ll be returning to Norfolk this year, which is no surprise. She’s spent a lot of time in Norfolk this year. But it looks like William and Kate will make a point of not attending the Christmas lunch, which is the black-tie feast after church.
Kate Middleton and Prince William will reportedly skip this year’s Christmas lunch with King Charles, but a controversial royal is set to attend. After a tough year for the Prince and Princess of Wales, they are looking forward to Christmas and catching up with the Royal Family.
Princess Kate, 42, and Prince William, 42, will attend the main Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham estate.
But, according to royal commentator Emily Andrews, the couple hope to see the Middletons for Christmas dinner this year.
Writing in her column in Woman, Emily claimed: “They prefer the informality of a relaxed lunch at nearby Anmer Hall. And I understand will do so again this year, with the addition of the Middleton family.”
Once Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six, have broken up from school in mid-December, it’s thought that the family will decamp to Norfolk.
The rota barely talks about this, but William and Kate usually avoid the Windsors’ Christmas lunch every year. Especially because they have Anmer Hall, and they host the Middletons there (and the Middletons are not welcome at the big house). While I think they avoid the lunch for many reasons, they should lean into the excuse of “the kids are not allowed to eat with their parents,” which is a bonkers rule from Queen Victoria’s reign. You know what else I wonder? Whether Will and Kate will attend the pre-Christmas lunch for the whole family. Last year, Charles hosted the bigger family lunch in mid-December at Windsor Castle, just a short distance from Adelaide Cottage, where William and Kate allegedly live. W&K still skipped it. They skipped it in 2022 as well. I also wonder about that report that Will & Kate would do the most to overshadow Charles’s Christmas events, and that W&K would post some private photos or a video from their Christmas celebrations at Anmer Hall.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte and Prince George attend Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene church, Sandringham, United Kingdom, on 25 December 2023.,Image: 832317029, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Arthur Edwards / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, Prince George and Prince Louis attend Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene church, Sandringham, United Kingdom, on 25 December 2023.,Image: 832317072, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Arthur Edwards / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince George and Prince Louis attend Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene church, Sandringham, United Kingdom, on 25 December 2023.,Image: 832317075, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Arthur Edwards / Avalon
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- Sandringham, UNITED KINGDOM – Members of the Royal Family attend Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, Norfolk. Pictured: Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, William, Prince of Wales, Prince George, Prince Lo BACKGRID USA 25 DECEMBER 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Sandringham, UNITED KINGDOM – Members of the Royal Family attend Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, Norfolk. Pictured: Catherine, Princess of Wales BACKGRID USA 25 DECEMBER 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Members of the British Royal Family attend the Christmas Day service at Sandringham Featuring: Catherine Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, Prince William, Prince Louis, Mia Tindall Where: Sandringham, Norfolk, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2023 Credit: Cover Images
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- Members of the British Royal Family attend the Christmas Day service at Sandringham Featuring: Catherine Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, Prince William, Prince Louis, Mia Tindall Where: Sandringham, Norfolk, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2023 Credit: Cover Images
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- Members of the British Royal Family attend the Christmas Day service at Sandringham Featuring: Prince George, Prince Louis, Catherine Princess of Wales Where: Sandringham, Norfolk, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2023 Credit: Cover Images
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- Members of the British Royal Family attend the Christmas Day service at Sandringham Featuring: Catherine Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, Prince William, Prince Louis Where: Sandringham, Norfolk, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2023 Credit: Cover Images
As part of doing things his way Will definitely WON’T be hosting the Windsors at Sandringham for Xmas lunch when he is King. Apparently he’s not religious so the Xmas day church visit will probably be out as well if he also decides NOT to be Head of the Church?
He’ll be doing Christmas with a small c.
Interesting that not one tabloid and it’s Rodent reporters are loosing their ever missing minds over the fact that wank and his coat hanger are skipping Christmas whatever with the king but to this day I still have to read how Harry and Meghan didn’t join the left behind a million years ago. I guess we only make allowances for people if their skin color is milky white
Exactly! There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when horror of horrors Harry and Meghan decided to spend the holidays with Meghan’s mum. How dare they! The Queen could die any moment! Philip could die any moment! It’s their DUTY to be there. Now it’s fine and middle class and wholesome to spend time with different family members. The protocol and tradition police have vanished.
@Afken
I totally agree. If they hadn’t been in such a hurry to gloat about the Sussexes NOT being invited to Sandringham, they definitely would be yelping about how poor Chuck has a foot in the grave – cancer yknow – and how heartless it is they are snubbing the poor dying king. They beat that horse to death in the Queen’s latter years. Scammy Markle is still trying to do that to Meghan about the Markle sperm donor.
Well, if you believe the reporting from the Daily Beast a few weeks ago about the “rival Christmas,” and I do, and Emily Andrews is former rota member and Sun royal reporter that periodically would reveal something the Palace did not want revealed, then the rota has been dutifully lying to the public about Kate and William attending the Christmas Day lunch for many years. Andrews, by the way, was reporting on Kate and the Middletons’ prodigious use of freebies and discounts even while Kate had married William and even while the Palace denied it when she went on maternity leave and was threatened at
Length by the Palace.
The vibe is very the Wales v Chuck and Camz. Like something’s going on there.
I would skip the lunch also if my kids are not allowed.
Soooo…..they’re going to show up at Sandringham to do the walk so the peasants can see them, but aren’t actually going to spend Christmas with Charles, who is fighting cancer?
I know this gets tiresome, but just imagine if this were H&M. Imagine if they lived a few miles from Charles and did the absolute bare minimum during Christmas.
And then the next day, Charles’ wife, The Queen, leaves him to go do Christmas with her original family. Quite a legacy for Charles.
Also, lets just go back to the idea that they are also skipping the lunch in Windsor as they have for the past two years. They really can’t stand the rest of the family, can they? Or can the rest of the family not stand them?
Good questions. I mean a bunch of them came out for that garden party as was certainly requested. So I don’t even know so much that the wider family doesn’t like them. Are they even close enough at this point to like or dislike? They def know where their bread is buttered and the wales know that they know where their bread is buttered if that makes sense. Transactional enough that it must be somewhat weird. I can believe that the wider family has despised the Wales at various times throughout the years. But I bet it’s more acceptance of that’s just how the wales are and possibly pity at this point. Overall, the Wales seem to have made themselves an island from the rest. A secretive island and it’s hard to form or maintain bonds that way. How many stories did we hear about how only a very very small circle of people really knows what this past year was like for the wales?
I’ve always thought that that was the norm for them – they do the church pap walk and go back to Amner to have a Merry Middleton Christmas. Carole’s bragged about it often enough. I think they did the lunch a few times when they were first married but then it stopped when her family wasn’t getting an invite.
They expect Harry and Meghan to fly 11 hours several times a year, if they lived in England and they didn’t literally drop everything that they were doing it’d be a travesty. They expect them to come for Trooping, Remembrance Day, Kate’s Christmas concert, Christmas, Ascot, garden parties it’s ridiculous. Even if you didn’t have ongoing issues with your family can you imagine if they expected you to literally fly 11 hours with two children under 10, six or seven times a year?! A lot of my family lived/lives in the South and it’s a good 12-hour drive, or 3 hour flight from where I grew up. We went and saw them at best once a year. Anything more would have been preposterous to even suggest.
A black-tie LUNCH? Bonkers.
Came to say something similar. A black tie lunch is wild.
These are people who have rules about bowing and curtseying to each other.
I thought black-tie was Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas lunch is right after church, so dressy day wear but not black tie? No doubt it would still be “formal” and not relaxing.
Black tie events are usually in the evening so this seems like an error of sorts. Nevertheless they have skipped the Christmas lunch for several years already. And it’s likely because the Middletons aren’t allowed to attend.
“I thought black-tie was Christmas Eve dinner.” It is.
I mean, I’m happy for the Wales kids. Christmas at Sandringham sounds boring af.
I think it depends on what they do during the black-tie lunch. If that lasts two hours and they get to spend that time playing with all the cousins and wreaking havoc, that could be fun. If they have to sit there in their dress clothes in the nursery and eat lunch quietly, that sounds horrible.
Like if I was a kid I’d prefer the playing over the black tie lunch, lol. and I’d prefer playing with my cousins than just the siblings that I see every day.
So that part I don’t necessarily have a problem with it, because the alternative could be a lot of fun for the kids. But just in general it sounds boring – the formal dinner the night before, the formal lunch, watching the king’s speech on the TV, etc. It all sounds so formal and overplanned.
I do wonder what will happen when william is king. Is Christmas just going to be him, Kate, his family and the Middletons? Who does the christmas walk? Pippa and James and their spouses?
@Becks1 – There is no black-tie Christmas lunch. The lunch is held after the Christmas Day church walk and the guests presumably stay in the clothes they have worn to church, or at least some sort of formal day-wear. It is usually a buffet-style event. The black-tie event is a formal dinner on Christmas Eve where no children will be present.
@Deborah1 thanks, that makes more sense. I knew there was a black tie dinner on xmas eve but figured hey, maybe these people like to wear their fancy clothes as much as possible, lol.
So, this year’s plans are exactly the same as last year’s – first rate journalism. I assume the “controversial royal” is Andrew, who doesn’t seem to be all that controversial for the RF.
Well, I see their point. Who wants to wear black tie at lunch? Just after Christmas morning? Also, who wants to hang with Chaz and Camilla and her family? Also, the Windsors have too many family functions. I skipped several of my mother’s functions over the years due to overload. I have a large family and there were always lots of us. Same as the Windsors. But, really, who wants to celebrate with Chaz and Camilla?
It might just be me, but I’m not too bothered by the kids not eating with the adults. Growing up in a rural area of California there was always a kids table and always in a different room than the adults. We could be a bit more “free” to be loud and didn’t have to worry about being shushed by the adults. (Plus we all know that little Louis seems to be a handful).
Can’t wait for the totally natural video of Can’t and Won’t dry humping under the Christmas tree in front of their kids. That will knock chuckles and his ho off the front pages for sure.
OMG, I’m dying with this visual!
Isn’t part of the issue that Camilla’s kids are invited to Xmas lunch now and William can’t stand Camilla’s son? I actually think it’s the best move not to go especially if the kids cant eat or spend much time with the grownups, Kate probably prefers something closer to a middle class Christmas for her kids. I wouldn’t want to hang out with Charles or Camilla either.
Wait, Camilla’s family is invited to this lunch but Kate’s is not?