Inside the Royal Family’s First Christmas Without Queen Elizabeth: ‘It Will Be Hard’. Despite keeping longstanding traditions of exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve and attending the holiday church service, the royals will be missing their matriarch
Christmas is going to be a little different this year for the royal family as this will mark their first holiday season without Queen Elizabeth.
This year, the British royals will reunite for the first time in two years after celebrating Christmas separately due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It marks the first holiday King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla will host under their new titles. A former palace staffer told People, “It will be hard, as the Queen was all they knew, like most of Britain.” And a former member of the queen’s staff added, “The first year is most difficult, as it is always the first of everything that you notice.”
This year, the family will once again gather at their Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England the country home where the former monarch traditionally spent the winter season.
It’s expected that the king’s siblings Princess Anne, Prince Edward, Prince Andrew, and their families will all visit the home for Christmas, as will Prince William, his wife Princess Kate, and their three, young children. King Charles will also deliver his first Christmas broadcast, a holiday tradition, during which he is expected to reflect on the death of his mother.
And the former palace staffer confirmed that this year’s speech is sure to, “resonate with a lot of people who have lost loved ones this year.” The family will also keep up a few other holiday traditions started by the queen, including exchanging gag gifts on Christmas Eve and walking to the local church on Christmas morning.
