20 Holiday Traditions the Royal Family Takes Very Seriously

The family surprisingly does not celebrate at Buckingham palace, but instead they travel to Sandringham house, a country manor on a measly 20,000 acres for some fresh air and privacy.

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Every year Prince Harry and Prince William compete against each other in a soccer match to support local charities. They each wear a pair of socks from their favorite professional soccer teams for good luck.

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The Queen and her husband Prince Phillip send out close to 1,000 Christmas cards every year. They wisely get a head start signing them the summer before the holiday season to ensure they are ready and received on time.

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The royal family attends church every year at St. Mary Magdalene church. Prince Charles leads the family as they walk to the service, where they are joined by the Queen, who is driven.

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After their morning church service, the royal family enjoys a Traditional turkey with a few EXTRA extras, like shrimp and lobster.

The Christmas decorations at Sandringham house, which include multiple Christmas Trees, are kept up on into February. The Queen does this to remember and honor her father, King George VI, who died in February of 1952.

At precisely 3:00 p.m. The Queen’s Christmas Message is broadcast across the United Kingdom. Everyone in the family, including the queen, sits down together to listen to her well wishes for the new year.

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Every year the family exchanges gifts on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day. They don’t go for opulence, but instead exchange silly gag gifts. Supposed gifts include a leather toilet seat from Princess Anne to Prince Charles, and a shower cap that had a rather funny saying from Prince Harry to his grandmother the Queen.

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After the Queen’s Christmas Message, the family spends time together working on puzzles or even playing a game of Charades.

The ballroom of Sandringham house has a large screen that can be pulled down to transform the room into a spacious theater perfect for Christmas movies, or even an episode or two of the Netflix original series The Crown, which the Queen reportedly loves.

Prince William and Kate seem to be starting their own tradition with a visit to Father Christmas each year to let Prince George (and soon Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis) drop off his letter to the North Pole in person.

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We may want to shun the scales around the holidays, but not so with the Royal family. Prominent Royal experts tell of a tradition where each member of the family weighs themselves before and after their Christmas feast, in order to make sure everyone is “well fed.”

Instead of waiting until Christmas morning to exchange gifts, everybody gets together to hand out presents to each other the night before on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve, the Queen ends the night with her favorite cocktail made from Dubonnet and Gin. Other members of the royal family, like Harry & William, have started their own holiday drinking tradition with a glass of hard cider made from apple trees found at Sandringham House.

Although the estate may be large, as the christmas seasons gets into the full swing Sandringham house can get quite crowded. At its busiest some family members have had to sleep in the staff quarters.

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Prince Charles always brings plums from his personal estate for the family to enjoy on Christmas day every year.

Prince Philip will host a pheasant shoot just in time for boxing day. A great way to end the festivities with some fresh air and exercise.

The plates and menus themselves are just as nice as the food being served on top of them. The official Christmas dinner menu is always in French, and Copeland China in blue and white is used for main courses.

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On Christmas day each member of the Royal family pops Christmas crackers before lunch, and then they each wear (The Queen included) the paper hats found within throughout the course of the meal.

Every year the Queen gifts more than 1,500 christmas puddings to her staff, as well as the staff of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. They use to come from Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, but in recent years she has made the switch to puddings from Tesco.