Camilla in jeans for a casual Christmas card with Charles

IN DAYS gone by, they tended to be rather stiff and formal affairs. But this year, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s Christmas card shows them in a sweetly relaxed posed.

The couple are seen in the gardens of Birkhall, Prince Charles’s home in the Scottish Highlands, cosied up on a bench – the prince’s arm around Camilla as his wife leans into his shoulder.

The future king, 72, smiling in the summer sunshine, sports an open-necked shirt, chinos and cream jacket, while Camilla, 73, is in navy blazer, pink shirt and jeans. Although it’s unusual to see a senior royal dressed down in denim, the duchess recently revealed she had been wedded to her jeans during lockdown.

‘I’ve been very, very happy with my jeans. It

‘A reminder of sunnier days’

will be very hard to get out of them again. I think you get into a sort of way of life, don’t you?’ she said.

Sources said the pair chose the picture because they ‘just really liked it’ and it reminded them of ‘brighter, sunnier days’. The snap wasn’t taken by a formal portrait photographer, but a member of staff during the couple’s time in Royal Deeside over the summer.

Yesterday Kensington Palace also formally released the photo of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their children George, Charlotte and Louis, which is on the front of their Christmas card and which was leaked at the weekend.

Leaked on Facebook at the weekend by a member of the public who received it, the picture was taken in the autumn at Anmer Hall, the family’s Norfolk home, and shows them sitting on hay bales.