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.
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