Happily, some royal traditions have long since bitten the dust, like it being required that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Home Secretary be present when a Queen gives birth.*
Others persist, like bad rashes, something Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor knows a thing or two about, and Christmas is no exception.
Not only is the past a foreign county but Sandringham come December 24 is too. While every other one of the 19.5 million families in Great Britain settles in for sprouts and Quality Street and keeping Nan away from the cooking sherry, at the heart of the Windsor Christmas lies one very unusual thing.
A printed timetable.
Like a bus or a court sitting, when the royal family arrives at the famed Norfolk estate they are reportedly handed a 72-hour schedule that then gets observed with a rigidity that would make the Swiss railways proud.
Arrivals, meals, cocktails, crackers, breaks for Quick-Eze – all are set down in black and white.
If only Mary and Joseph had thought about a laminated plan, huh?
While things have reportedly eased under King Charles, the proceedings as set out by the late Queen for Christmas were about as spontaneous and simple as the D-Day landings.
According to longtime, old hand biographer Robert Jobson, members of the royal family, on arrival at Sandringham for the holidays, are handed a timetable by the Master of the Household that is then stringently observed.
“It used to be a nightmare going to Sandringham because there used to be so many outfit changes, sometimes up to six a day”, a source told Vanity Fair’s Katie Nicholl recently.
“But the king has relaxed that. There won’t be so many changes but everyone will wear black tie at Christmas dinner”.
But royal ‘relaxed’ is not what you and I might consider relaxed
Even under Charles, “the schedule still exists and it’s really quite exhausting,” Jobson has said.
“One minute you’re doing one thing, then you have to change for drinks, then get changed again for dinner.”
Our tale begins months earlier with guests invited long in advance.
Then, on December 24 the various cousins, nieces and nephews crunch up the long gravel drive to celebrate with the monarch, they arrive in a pre-ordained, prescribed order, with the most junior ones required to pitch up first.
At 4pm, tea is taken in the Sandringham saloon room. Dundee cake is consumed. Manners are minded.
(Hopefully the ghosts of parties past don’t haunt the vast room given it played host to a birthday bash that Andrew reportedly threw for Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000, a party that allegedly included guests being handed party bags with sex drugs and condoms, according to Jobson’s new one, The Windsor Legacy).
Then it’s time to channel the King’s great, great, great grandad Prince Albert who, when he married Queen Victoria, brought with him a crate of wurst, the collected works of Goethe and an abiding yen for his native German Christmas traditions.
(He used to order his tree from his ancestral home in Bavaria.)
That’s why, to this day, the royal family do presents – gag only – on the 24th.
Again, there is A Plan and one must stick to it, no hurley burly, exuberant ripping of wrapping paper.
A source told Vanity Fair: “Trestle tables are set up and the presents all laid out with name badges. The children’s presents go under the tree, and there are always joke presents.
“One Christmas, Princess Anne once gave Charles a doormat, which got a laugh. Presents are always very practical. It’s probably a bit more lavish these days.
“Charles is very extravagant, rather like his late grandmother, the Queen Mother. The queen was pretty frugal”.
(Diana, Princess of Wales’ first Christmas in 1981 went dreadfully after she arrived with armfuls of luxe gifts like cashmere and Floris soaps only to discover her in-laws only exchanged jokey presents. She reportedly gave new sister-in-law Princess Anne a cashmere jumper – and Anne reportedly gave her a toilet paper holder.)
Some notable novelty pressies: Prince Harry reportedly gave the late Queen a shower cap with ‘Ain’t Life A B****’ written on it; Kate, The Princess of Wales gave him (pre-Meghan) a ‘grow your own girlfriend’ kit; and as Harry recounted in Spare, Princess Margaret once gave him a biro.
Then the family, barely having had time to digest their fruit scones, tootle off to dress for dinner where it’s black tie all the way.
They really know how to party like it’s 1882.
(Elasticised pants and being slobbily supine in front of Die Hard are alien concepts to a family who are still yet to get a basic briefing about ‘fun’.)
Drinky poos, as the Queen Mother called them, include martini, before dinner is served bang on 8.15pm where guests adhere to a strict placement done by, these days, Queen Camilla using a leather board.
By the time they go to bed they must be stuffed, knackered and in desperate need of a tisane.
After all this, what better way to start Christmas Day than with a kipper, a devilled kidney and deeply entrenched gender divisions?
At least under the late Queen’s rule, the manly menfolk would head downstairs at 8.30am to stuff themselves with a good English fry up like no one had invented cholesterol yet while the women were served abstemious slices of toast and fruit in their room like they were trying to mimic a Victorian wasting disease.
Whether this is still the case under Charles,, I don’t know.
Given he likes to start the day with a bird seedy bowl of muesli – and it’s impossible to see him tucking into a buttery fried slice – I’d like to think not.
Who knew the fried egg was still a feminist frontier?
Anywho, there’s no chance for les Windsors to have a good go at relaxing on Christmas morning as there’s Church to be had.
Every year, en masse, they walk the 400-ish metres from to St Mary Magdalene Church where hundreds of neatly assembled proles are kept behind rope lines, penned in pensioners proffering sweaty boxes of chocolates from Sainsbury’s carrier bags.
Then, carols sung, a spot of Godliness absorbed, hands shaken and the occasional baby dandled, it’s back to the house for more eating.
In the best spirit of Victoriana, the children are shunted off to the nursery while their parents gather in the dining room where they are served roast turkey and all the trimmings. It’s the one meal of the year when the royal chef is allowed to enter the dining room.
God the unions really have gone too far.
At 3pm, as the nation regrets having thirds, the royal family are herded into the double-heighted vast saloon to watch a wheeled-in tele broadcasting the pre-recorded King’s speech. (The late Queen was known by the BBC crew as “one-take Windsor”.)
Then comes a reprieve, with the family being allowed a brief window of free time to play board games or have a brisk walk.
(Even inmates get an hour’s recreation a day.)
Then the whole rigmarole, of black tie and soup spoons, begins again.
Boxing Day brings with it a lovely opportunity to finally get outside into the fresh air and to enjoy some wholesale slaughter of small birds for the annual December 26 pheasant shoot. Sorry birdies.
Finally, after mass death has reigned down, the royal family disbands in dire need of a salad and a bit of shush.
However, this year, for the third year in a row, there is a massive Wales-sized hole in all of this.
Prince William and Kate will reportedly, as they did in 2023 and 2024 consciously exclude themselves from this narrative and will do a family Christmas at their home Anmer Hall, about 4km away from Sandringham.
The Waleses will, according to The Royalist’s Tom Sykes, be opting out of these regimented proceedings and will skip Christmas lunch with the King.
“William and the family will do their duty and go to church with big smiles pasted on, but they are not expected for Christmas lunch at the big house”, a source recently told Sykes. “It has been an extremely difficult year for William and Catherine”
There are no hurt feelings, a friend of the King’s told Sykes, saying, “Of course William is invited, and of course he is free to do his own thing without anyone being remotely upset.”
At the rate members of the royal family are pulling out of December 25, the Sandringham schedule inkjet printer is not going to need that much toner this year.
Also missing this year will be Princess Beatrice and her family who, Sykes reports, have sensibly decided to go skiing instead of accepting the King’s invitation, and Camilla’s children Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes.
Parker Bowles recently told the Daily Mail that they will do “one year on, one year off,” at Sandringham.
Where will he be instead? “It’s back to the sofa at my ex-wife’s”.
No timetable? No doggedly hewing to set-in-aspic tradition? Not having to explain to Anne what to do with a plastic Poundland glass with ‘It’s wine o’clock somewhere’?
Sounds perfect.
*(Home secretaries witnessed the births of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.)
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news.com.au ’
