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The festive season is full of palace traditions - serious and silly!

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When it comes to Christmas, members of the royal family are sticklers for tradition. Some of their rituals date back generations – others have been introduced more recently. Here's a look at what the King and co will be getting up to this festive season.

Christmas is always celebrated at Sandringham

The redbrick residence in Norfolk, two hours and 40 minutes from London, is where the monarch and his family spend the holidays. Owned personally by the sovereign rather than being Crown property, the house was bought in 1862 for the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, who began hosting Christmas there from the end of the century.

Sandringham Palace was the setting of the first royal Christmas broadcast, made by George V in 1932, and Elizabeth II broadcast her first televised Christmas message there in 1957.

From the 1960s, when her youngest children, Andrew and Edward, were small, Elizabeth held Christmas gatherings at Windsor Castle because it saved having to make the trip to Norfolk. When the castle was being rewired in 1988, the family decamped to Sandringham instead, and since then it has been the setting for all royal Christmases.

Royals arrive according to rank

You can't just show up at Sandringham for Christmas when you feel like it. The protocol dictates that family members arrive in the reverse order of importance. The junior royals arrive first and the most senior – now King Charles and Queen Camilla – appear last.