THE ROYALS AT CHRISTMAS

Festive celebrations for the Royal Family were certainly very different in 2021, the Queen’s first Christmas without her late husband by her side. We look back at how they spent their holiday season - and reveal how the Duchess of Cambridge left TV viewers ‘speechless’ with her ‘touching and mesmerising’ piano performance at a Westminster Abbey carol concert...

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Even the Royals were not exempt from ever-shifting holiday plans in the wake of the Omicron variant's rise, and at the end of 2021 the Queen and her family skipped their traditional Christmas trip to the Sandringham Estate, opting instead for Her Majesty to remain at Windsor Castle as indeed she did at the end of 2020.

As COVID cases rose in the UK the Queen decided to cancel her traditional pre-Christmas lunch with the family. The 95-year-old monarch was said to have been determined to press on with the lunch at Windsor Castle, at which she was expected to host 50 or so members of her extended family, including Prince Charles and Camilla, but decided at the last minute it would have been irresponsible to go ahead and in the process maybe jeopardise the guests’ later Christmas plans.

For most of the last three decades, the Queen has attended church services on Christmas Day in Sandringham, near her English country estate, and spent the day with immediate family. But this time round, as in 2020, she spent Christmas at Windsor with Prince Charles and Camilla. Her daughter Princess Anne did not attend because her husband, Timothy Laurence, tested positive for the virus, according to Buckingham Palace.

In the lead-up to Christmas, the Queen was largely absent from public view. In October, she cancelled a trip to Northern Ireland because doctors advised her to rest, and she delivered a video address during the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow rather than attending a leaders reception as planned.

She was certainly back in public view on Christmas Day however when more than nine million people tuned in to watch the Queen’s speech, attracting more viewers than any other programme.