New Princess Kate Christmas mystery deepens
Kate, the Princess of Wales has suddenly veered off course and has something very strange in the lead up to the holidays this year.
COMMENT
2024 will be the year that the royal family and the mysterious merged.
As it all comes to an end, we can say that there has not been this much intrigue and suspense swirling around the monarchy since Richard III decided to do something nasty to his nephews in the Tower, an urge that King Charles might be having this week towards his lumpish dolt of a brother Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
At the centre of this year’s mysteriousness has been Kate, the Princess of Wales, a woman about whom the greatest riddle previously was what sort of holy unnatural hair gloop she used to help her bouncy blow dry defy gravity and the basic laws of physics.
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Well, we have a fresh one today – yes, even with the end of the year in sight and the tinsel already starting to droop.
Where the hell is the Wales family Christmas card?
For years, she and husband Prince William, the Prince of Wales have released their annual dose of glad tidings and heartwarming schmaltz around the very rough midpoint of December – anywhere from December 10 to December 16. You have to go way back to 2019 for them to have put out their card as late as December 18.
Well, here we are, and all we have to show for it is a big fat question mark.
What the dickens is going on this year inside the Waleses’ Kensington Palace operations?
One answer could lie in toady should-be-Tower-dweller Andrew, who has managed to bring down a fresh and highly embarrassing crisis on Buckingham Palace’s head with only five shopping days left to go until Christmas.
Turns out that a “close confidant” of the duke’s for years on end was a man who has been unmasked as an alleged Chinese spy, a spy whom Andrew invited into a series of royal palaces and whom he tapped to head up his business operations in China. (The duke said in a statement last week that he has “ceased all contact” with the man in question, but the horsey has definitely bolted here).
It would be entirely sensible if the Waleses had decided to sit on their card until this hullabaloo has blown over; however, they could be waiting a while, putting them in a right oil’ pickle. The prince and princess have to issue it at some point, but how close to Christmas can or will they get?
(Added to which, last year on December 11, Kensington Palace also put out a professionally shot video of Kate and her three children spreading holiday cheer and visiting a baby bank).
For King Charles, the Waleses’ card’s unveiling would be an absolute godsend, a channel change and distraction from the latest, and no doubt far from the last, Andrew imbroglio.
For His Majesty, after a helluva year, taking the world’s attention off the eighth in line to the throne’s appalling judgement and general twittishness would be heaven-sent right now.
It is also an easy and obvious win for a royal family that could desperately do with some sort of shiny new thing to deflect people from thinking too much about what the Duke of York has been getting up to.
For Crown Inc, a dose of the patented Wales family sweetness – the kids generally piled up around or on their parents like sweet puppies, the vibes heart-gladdening, the message one of love and joy – would be the perfect panacea today.
Hopefully, our patience will pay off and when the card does finally come through, let us really enjoy it and savour it, because we could be waiting a while yet to see Kate again.
On Thursday this week, the extended royal family, about 70 of them, will descend on Buckingham Palace to gorge themselves on turkey, sprouts and the cheapest sav-blanc that Charles could dig up from some forgotten corner of the Palace cellars. (Christmas is, of course, the time to get rid of the vino you haven’t been able to shift).
This annual Palace gathering usually marks the beginning of the royal family’s holiday break, save for them appearing for their traditional walk to church on December 25. Then they sensibly disappear back inside their respective historic homes to put on their elasticised pants and do some top notch lolling.
They, like the rest of us, are about to go on holiday. They vacation. They do whatever members of the monarchy do to relax and recharge after 12 months of public caring and posing for selfies with the hoodie-wearing hordes in regional town centres.
They are about to be off the clock and will stay that way well into January.
Making this year’s break even more necessary is that they have just endured what Wiliam has called a “brutal” and a “dreadful” year, with both the King and Kate fighting cancer. As 2024 comes to an end, the princess is cancer-free while Charles’ treatment continues.
My point here being – don’t expect to see Kate for a while yet. We might get a new image of her for her 43rd birthday on January 9, but after that, don’t rush into 2025 with any bright, shiny expectations and hopes that she might hit the ground running and start turning up all over the shop.
The message from the Palace about the princess has been clear and consistent – she will only undertake official duties and appear in public when and if she is up to it, with decisions to be made on a case-by-case, on-the-day basis.
There are no firm guarantees or assurances about when the princess might, after Christmas, be next spied doing some princessing.
So let us attempt to be patient and bide our time in a sensible manner while we wait for 2024’s card, if not some sort of Christmassy social media video a la last year’s also.
We have not been naughty but oh-so-nice. Now Andrew, on the other hand …
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
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