Have yourself a royally mundane Christmas...
Prince William has revealed the unthinkable - that the Firm celebrate just like the rest of us, says Guy Kelly
We tend to think we know what Christmas is like in the Royal family. The meet-up, the church walk, a slap-up lunch, the Queen’s Christmas Message, maybe some party games in the evening. But while all that does still go on, rarely do we hear about the traditions within the family – the food, the music, the ways they pass the time. You suspect it would be through these that we’d really learn about them.
At the end of last week, the Duke of Cambridge gave a short interview that gave us more Christmas colour than we’d had in years. Talking to the in-house radio station at the Royal Marsden hospital in London, of which he has been president since 2007, the Duke answered questions from young patients about what exactly goes on behind palace doors. Lavish feasts, real reindeer, elves imported from Lapland? High-class entertainment, live performances and the finest music?
Er, no. It turns out that the Cambridges are just as mundane as the rest of us; and their Christmas is almost impressively normal. If there are imported elves, he’s not about to let slip.
First and foremost, the focus is on the meal, which is quite right. “Food is quite important to me at Christmas. I do tend to eat a lot at Christmas. There’s always a tiny little bit of space left in my stomach somewhere for a bit more turkey or sausage or, you know, a bit of wine,” he said.
His favourite film to watch? Nothing more than Will Ferrell’s 2003 classic Elf. “It’s very funny and I keep watching it every Christmas, it still makes me laugh.” A film about a man raised in a bizarre institution who leaves, travels to America, and finds it difficult to adjust to life as a normal person, so constantly puts his foot in it? I wonder if Prince Harry likes it, too…
As for William’s favourite Christmas song? “I find it so hard, because I love so many different types of songs…” Ah, the “Best of the Beatles” defence. “But for this particular chat, I’m going to say Feliz Navidad, because it’s a bit different.” In fairness, that’s not “a bit different”, William. “A bit different” would be choosing Einstürzende Neubauten’s How Did I Die? and saying you’re currently teaching Charlotte how to play it on the ukulele.
As he revealed more, you could be forgiven for raising an eyebrow, especially when we heard about the family games the Cambridges play on Christmas Day. This is a family with an eight-year-old, a six-year-old and a three-year-old, and yet apparently they undertake Monopoly marathons. “We’re playing board games with the children quite a lot.