The Royalist<\/a>: \u201cWilliam 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. It has been an extremely difficult year for William and Catherine\u201d. <\/p>\nAccording to Sykes, a contributing factor for \u201cthe deep personal rift between father and son\u2026has been exacerbated by Charles\u2019 determination to continue to include Andrew\u2019s children, Beatrice and Eugenie, in formal royal events.\u201d This includes them reportedly being invited to spend the holidays at Sandringham.<\/p>\n
However, a friend of Charles \u201cangrily denied\u201d to The Royalist that the Waleses skipping lunch \u201crepresented a rift\u201d, saying, \u201cof course he is free to do his own thing without anyone being remotely upset.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sure Jan.<\/p>\n
Whether the King is quite the cool, sanguine cucumber about William choosing to Christmas with, possibly, the Middleton mere and pere over his own flesh-and-blood sire, what is clear is that the royal Christmases of yore, when Queen Elizabeth still presided over things, are looking like a thing of the past.<\/p>\n
They used to, not that long ago, seem like big, convivial affairs involving dozens and dozens of guests and so many rellies that at least one duke probably ended up eating his plum pud seated at a tacked-on card table.<\/p>\n
Take in 2017 when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip hosted nearly 30 guests at Sandringham, Prince Harry and another royal fianc\u00e9e, Meghan Markle, along with a trio of Yorks, Princess Anne\u2019s son Peter and his wife Autumn Phillips and their daughters and Sarah Chatto, Princess Margaret\u2019s daughter, her artist husband Daniel and their two sons, amongst others. Photos from that year\u2019s walk-to-church now seem like a quaint sepia-toned relic – in those days, there were no out-and-out pariahs, or Oprah-ing, and no one at the FBI had written to then Prince Andrew to wonder if he might fancy a bit of a chat. (In January 2020, it was revealed that the FBI had been trying to speak to the then Duke of York for months about his links with Jeffrey Epstein.)<\/p>\n
A few days later, on December 28, 2017, Harry guest edited Radio 4\u2019s Today program and enthused about how Meghan had had a \u201cfantastic\u201d time getting to know her soon-to-be in-laws and that they were \u201cthe family, I suppose, that she\u2019s never had\u201d.<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s aged well, hasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
Still, that big, lovely, jubbly Christmas of cousins and dogs and children and Prince Edward forced to sleep on the fold-out is a thing of the past.<\/p>\n
What William and Kate\u2019s dodging of spending the day with the King lays sadly bare is just how hollowed out and fractured the Windsors are after the last few years. <\/p>\n
The Sussexes are off in California trimming a recyclable tree and wondering when Netflix might call them back; Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has already gotten his well-deserved lump of coal with even more of the grubby stuff to come with the US Congress breathing down his neck; Sarah Ferguson has had her last gravy-drenched slab of Sandringham goose washed down with buckets of Pouilly-Fum\u00e9, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie\u2019s regular beetling off to the Middle East on business trips is reportedly making inquiring minds wonder how far certain HRH apples might fall from the cash grabby tree.<\/p>\n
For Charles, it\u2019s all just a bit sad. On the personal front, neither of his children wants to ring in Chrissie with him, his brother is a leprous public figure reduced to being a bargain bin \u2018Mr\u2019, and January will be the second anniversary of his cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n
And professionally, on His Majesty\u2019s watch, the working ranks of Crown Inc have been reduced to Edward, a prince with the name and face recognition of a backbencher from the Wigan; Anne, a sister staunchly taking her 100 percent polyester pantsuits off to sternly shake hands in podiatry wards and lifeboat stations; and William and Kate, a son and daughter-in-law who have made it clear they are done obediently unveiling plaques and meekly toeing all palace lines. <\/p>\n
Aside from Charles\u2019 siblings, how many of his family will be on hand to help him carve the bird on Christmas Day? No need to bring the folding card table down from the attic, kept alongside that strangely ageing portrait of Anne.<\/p>\n
The big winners here are Michael and Carole Middleton, you\u2019d have to think, who could be in for another year of pulling crackers and arguing over the tin of Quality Street with not one but two future Kings.<\/p>\n
For His Majesty, so much for peace on Earth and goodwill towards all men. <\/p>\n
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years\u2019 experience working with a number of Australia\u2019s leading media titles. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news.com.au \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was the Christmas pickle of all time. It was 2010, and the first royal fianc\u00e9e on deck since New Labour was en route to celebrate with her future in-laws. What could Kate Middleton buy as a pressie for the Queen of Great Britain, a woman who legally owned an entire nation\u2019s seabed, had her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2187272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[350016,345750,422049,376730,21823,382836,422051,422023,422036,422050,422041,22691,344680,397480,365976,422032,422031,349901,323230,382825,349734,373732,382847,311372,308814,422038,421777,26961,422047,422028,422046,421776,422034,22942,183315,382814,422025,25741,422045,422044,23067,21825,382813,382806,382828,422033,422029,76567,422030,422026,422039,22931,37258,22982,23068,37936,345690,422024,386857,422035,22769,422040,422052,422037,22946,422043,422048,422027,422053,422042,359058,27727,358540,408119],"class_list":["post-2187271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-america","tag-anne","tag-annual-walk-to-church-treat","tag-armed-forces","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-autumn-phillips","tag-bargain-bin","tag-big-house","tag-bog-standard","tag-business-trips","tag-california","tag-cancer-diagnosis","tag-carole-middleton","tag-catherine","tag-church-service","tag-common-law-beatified","tag-crown","tag-daniel","tag-daniela-elser","tag-diana","tag-duchess-of-cambridge","tag-duke-of-cambridge","tag-duke-of-edinburgh","tag-duke-of-york","tag-earl-of-wessex","tag-elke-budenbender","tag-europe","tag-face-recognition","tag-flesh-and-blood-sire","tag-formal-royal-events","tag-frank-walter-steinmeier","tag-grubby-stuff","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-king-charles","tag-leading-media-titles","tag-lifeboat-stations","tag-london","tag-margaret","tag-maximum-cost","tag-meghan-markle","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-official-royal-lunch","tag-palace-lines","tag-peter","tag-podiatry-wards","tag-poignant-two-minute-silence","tag-polyester-pantsuits","tag-prince-andrew","tag-prince-edward","tag-prince-philip","tag-prince-william","tag-princess-of-wales","tag-princess-royal","tag-quaint-sepia-toned-relic","tag-queen-elizabeth-ii-of-the-commonwealth-realms","tag-rope-lines","tag-royal-family","tag-royal-fiancee","tag-sanguine-cucumber","tag-sarah-chatto","tag-sarah-ferguson","tag-shambolic-handling","tag-silent-tributethe","tag-skipping-lunch","tag-tacked-on-card-table","tag-time-getting","tag-tom-sykes","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-us-congress"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Kate-Middleton-scraps-major-royal-Christmas-tradition.avif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2187271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2187273,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187271\/revisions\/2187273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2187272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2187271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2187271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2187271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}