Tabla de contenidos para PEOPLE Royals: A Royal Christmas en People

FROM THE TIME OF THE BBC’S 1922 founding, its first director hoped to deliver Christmas greetings from the King directly into people’s homes via a newly popular medium: radio. It would be 10 years before the then monarch, George V, agreed. On Dec. 25, 1932, subjects of the global British Empire heard the King, speaking into microphones set up at Sandringham, give a speech written by Rudyard Kipling that began, “I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all.” With that, a nearly unbroken annual ritual was born. The Christmas Day broadcast was carried on by George VI, by his daughter Elizabeth II and, as of 2022, by King Charles III, who spoke from St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, where his mother had been…

WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS in 2022 Netflix’s Harry & Meghan debuted, in which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed ways they felt wronged by his family. Notably, they said that palace sources had fed negative stories about them to the tabloids. In the New Year, Harry’s tell-all book Spare further widened the gulf between the couple and the royal family. In 2023 he was not on speaking terms with his brother nor did he spend meaningful time with William or Charles at the King’s May coronation. (Meghan stayed in Montecito, Calif., hosting a birthday party for their son Archie.) But amid the frank discussion of how they had come to be estranged, Meghan shared in the docuseries that she had left England with fond memories of the holidays she…

Did the Duke and Duchess of Windsor actually use the nickname Shirley Temple for the Queen? Did Prince Charles secretly meet with Prime Minister John Major to discuss encouraging his mother to abdicate? Did Diana and Camilla really lunch together at a London restaurant called Menage a Trois? Of all the delicious details and dramatic turns on the Netflix series The Crown, which ones are true and which take a bit—or a boatload—of poetic license? We can tell you, of course. Yes to the nicknames, no to the abdication plot, yes to the lunch, probably no to that location, though Menage a Trois was a hot eatery in the ’80s. Does it matter? Going into its sixth and final season, The Crown—which never purported to be more than inspired by…

‘Someone somewhere today will remark that Christmas is a time for children. It’s an engaging truth, but only half the story. Perhaps it’s truer to say that Christmas can speak to the child within us all. Adults, when weighed down with worries, sometimes fail to see the joy in simple things, where children do not. We have the chance to reminisce and see anew the wonder of the festive season through the eyes of our young children.… They teach us all a lesson—just as the Christmas story does that in the birth of a child, there is a new dawn with endless potential’—QUEEN ELIZABETH II, IN HER FINAL CHRISTMAS DAY ADDRESS, 2021…

SHE ISN’T THE FIRST MUSICAL ROYAL. Henry VIII composed folk songs in the 16th century that are still played today. His daughters Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I learned harpsichord and lute. But not since Princess Diana danced in a 1985 duet to “Uptown Girl” had a performance so captivated royal watchers. While hosting a 2021 holiday concert in Westminster Abbey, Princess Kate sat at the piano and played “For Those Who Can’t Be Here” before more than 1,200 guests, including health care workers whom she and Prince William had met during the COVID-19 pandemic. William beamed as his wife’s fingers lightly touched the keys while accompanying Scottish singer Tom Walker. “I thought she absolutely smashed the performance,” said Walker of Kate, who started taking music lessons at age 11. “It’s…

BY ORDER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, who assumed the English throne following the Norman invasion of 1066, construction on Windsor Castle began in 1070. Building it back then took 16 years. Today, just the planning process of decorating the palace for the holidays still needs a full 11 months. Weeks after the last garlands are taken down, the decor team starts thinking about the coming year’s theme. In 2019 a velvet-and-gold Victorian motif honored the 200th anniversary of the births of Victoria and Albert. The 2022 display again delighted the thousands of seasonal visitors who tour the public rooms of the palace, which is still in use as a residence. (Services at Windsor’s St. George’s Chapel were also open to all.) The idea of decorating a tree indoors is believed…

LADY DIANA WEDS Season 4 She could have replicated the 1981 ivory silk gown. Instead, says costume designer Amy Roberts, “I wanted to give you your memory of that dress: great big sleeves, massive long train, the scrumptiousness of it.” After consulting David Emanuel, a designer of Diana’s real gown, Roberts served a similar effect. As actor Emma Corrin told British Vogue,“I walked out, and everyone went completely silent.” Elizabeth, Young Royal Seasons 1 and 2 In addition to dressing a twentysomething Queen (Claire Foy), the show’s first costumer, Michele Clapton, created some 300 looks for the main cast and thousands for background actors. Foy, who gave birth just before filming started, had to wear a corset, but, she told New York magazine, “a lot of my costumes had a zip…

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AFTER TWO YEARS OF HOLDING small and separate celebrations because of the pandemic, Britain’s royals might have looked forward to a big Christmas that looked like those in the past: with the sprawling family all together at Sandringham House. The hoped-for reunion did take place, but Queen Elizabeth’s death in September 2022 made the gathering, hosted for the first time by King Charles and Queen Camilla, bittersweet. While the new monarch would have his own way of carrying out many duties, long-held holiday customs are not where he was likely to make big changes. “Christmas in any family is always about tradition,” noted royal biographer Ingrid Seward in a People interview. “He will keep it the same as it ever was.” This year the Windsors are again expected to sit…

FOR BRITISH ROYALS, CHRISTMAS is a command performance. Princess Diana, who grew up in Norfolk on the Sandringham estate and was baptized at its St. Mary Magdalene Church, understood this even before she married into the Windsor clan at age 20. Beginning in 1981 she would spend nearly every holiday with her husband’s family—including some after she and Charles split in 1992, for this was the only way to have Christmas Day with her sons William and Harry. Queen Elizabeth had called Sandringham, where the family has celebrated since 1988, “an escape.” But for Diana it was a prison. Chef Darren McGrady, who worked for the princess, told the New York Post in 2021 that he once saw her walking the grounds at Christmastime wearing headphones. “I asked her what…

CHEF DARREN MCGRADY SPENT 15 years cooking for the Windsors beginning in 1982, when his early duties included preparing meals for Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis (diced meat with cabbage and rice). He soon graduated to handling feasts for the family and guests before moving to Kensington Palace as chef for Princess Diana and her sons. In that time, he says, the royals stuck to the classics, especially when it came to yuletide food. Christmas Eve meant a formal dinner at 8:30—men in black tie, and floor-length gowns for the ladies. McGrady and his staff would lay out “something festive, some game, like pheasant or venison, and roasted wintry vegetables, like parsnips.” The next morning, full English breakfast—bacon, sausage, kippers and kidneys, with an option of fruit and boiled eggs (which…

FRONT COVER (clockwise from top left) Samir Hussein/WireImage; theimagedirect.com; Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images; theimagedirect.com; Alamy; Kensington Palace TITLE PAGE Jack Taylor/Getty Images TABLE OF CONTENTS Stephen Pond/Getty Images CHRISTMAS FOR KIDS 4-5 Samir Hussein/WireImage; 6-7 (clockwise from bottom left) Historia/Shutterstock; Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images; Lisa Sheridan/Studio Lisa/Getty Images(2); 8-9 (clockwise from bottom left) Dennis Lee Royle/AP Photo; PA Images/Getty Images; Dave Thompson/PA/AP Photo; 10-11 PA Images/Getty Images; 12-13 (clockwise from bottom left) Georges De Keerle/Getty Images; PA Images/Getty Images; Martin Keene/PA Images/Getty Images; 14-15 (from left) Richard Young/Shutterstock; Fiona Hanson/AP Photo; 16-17 (clockwise from bottom left) Andrew Matthews/Getty Images(2); Samir Hussein/WireImage(2); 18-19 (clockwise from bottom right) Chris Jackson/Getty Images(2); Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images; Richard Pohle/AFP/Getty Images; Alastair Grant/AFP/Getty Images; 20-21 Aaron Chown/AFP/Getty Images HOLIDAYS WITH THE KING 22-23 (from left) Jonathan…