King Charles reveals how Windsors do Christmas at Sandringham

King Charles will once again gather his family at Sandringham this Christmas, continuing a festive tradition that has shaped royal holidays since 1870. 

While celebrations at the Norfolk estate are famously private, those close to the Palace have offered a glimpse behind the curtains of how the Windsors mark the season complete with grand dinners, gifts, and time-honoured rituals.

Festivities begin on Christmas Eve, when guests arrive at Sandringham and assemble in the wood-panelled drawing room for afternoon tea. 

Delicate sandwiches, scones and muffins set the tone before the family moves on to one of their most beloved traditions, the exchange of presents around a specially erected trestle table.

The ceremony, a nod to the royals’ German roots, sees the King hand out £5 “joke” gifts in strict order of seniority, a ritual that has endured since the 19th century, though aides hint it could evolve in years to come. 

Over the decades, the tradition has produced some truly memorable offerings, from Princess Anne’s leather toilet seat for then-Prince Charles to “false bosoms” gifted to the late Princess Diana, and the singing hamster Meghan once chose for Queen Elizabeth II.

Zara Tindall, who will join her mother Princess Anne and the wider family at Sandringham this year, recently summed up the occasion perfectly. 

“We are so lucky,” she told the Daily Mail. “Christmas is always amazing.”

Grant Harrold in his bestselling 2025 memoir The Royal Butler, lifts the velvet curtain on festive life behind Palace doors, revealing a holiday season filled with practical jokes, water fights and some truly unforgettable presents.

Recalling a staff Christmas party at St James’s Palace in 2004, Harrold describes finding himself seated next to Prince William, then just 22 and very much off-duty. 

“I was caught in the crossfire of a water fight involving Prince William,” he wrote, after the future king and a fellow staff member began loading water balloons and firing them at guests.

“It was hilarious. Everyone was in fits of laughter,” he recalled. 

“It was like hanging out with any young man except this one was destined to be King.”