The royal couple’s new holiday card show them in all their crowning glory
King Charles and Queen Camilla are continuing a royal holiday tradition during an especially regal year.
The King, 75, and Queen, 76, released the photo they’ve chosen for this year’s holiday card on Saturday. This year, they chose a portrait by photographer Hugo Burnand taken in the Throne Room of Buckingham Palace following their coronation on May 6.
“Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and New Year,” the inscription reads.
Burnand got behind the camera for the historic official portraits taken after King Charles and Queen Camilla’s crowning ceremony after previously acting as the couple’s wedding photographer in 2005. (He was tapped by the royals again six years later to take the official portraits of Prince William and Kate Middleton on their 2011 wedding day.)
Last year, the couple picked a candid photo featuring a smiling Charles as Camilla lovingly looked at him for the seasonal greeting. The photo was taken by royal photographer Samir Hussein at the Braemar Games, a special exhibition of the Scottish heritage and their traditional games that takes place each year in the Scottish Highlands, in early September, just days before the death of Queen Elizabeth.
King Charles and Queen Camilla have varied their photo choices over the years. In 2021, the then-Prince Charles and Camilla opted for another candid photo that reflected the precautions people have taken amid the COVID pandemic where Charles wears a mask and helps his wife put on her face covering during Royal Ascot. The couple chose a casual photo of themselves in the colorful garden of Birkhall in Scotland in 2020. In 2019, they opted for a photo from one of their most exciting royal duties of the year: their visit to Havana, Cuba.
Each Christmas Day, the royal family heads to St. Mary Magdalene church for mass, followed by greeting well-wishers. They then head back to Sandringham to enjoy a traditional holiday feast — and this year, Queen Camilla’s family is expected to join for the first time. According to the ITV royals editor Chris Ship, Camilla’s children — Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes — and other members of the Queen’s family will attend the lunch this year.
In past years, Queen Camilla would leave the royal family’s Christmas gathering in the afternoon to spend time with her children and grandchildren on the holiday.