How many of our Christmas traditions do we owe to the royal family?

Perhaps you think the royals celebrate differently from the rest of us but you would be wrong, writes Jeremy Archer. In fact, their influence has been pervasive

Generations of royals have moulded our own Christmas traditions (Getty)

Surely the royal family don’t celebrate Christmas like the rest of us, do they? Well, actually, they do, although the scale is slightly different. But perhaps more importantly, they have had a defining influence on the way in which Christmas is celebrated in this country and across much of the Commonwealth.

Christmas customs have been imported, adapted and adopted. Like so many British families, the royal family celebrate Christmas together, decorate trees, exchange presents, play games, attend Divine Service and have fun. Through the writing of my book, A Royal Christmas, I have been able to explore the evolution of those Christmases from 1066 – when King William I (the Conqueror) was crowned in Westminster Abbey – to the present day, with a particular focus on Victorian Christmases, which are so reminiscent of those which we enjoy today.

A boar’s head served on a silver platter formed the centrepiece of King Henry VIII’s Christmas celebrations while Queen Elizabeth I commissioned William Shakespeare to write the comedy, Twelfth Night, to entertain her guest, Virginio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, in 1601. Less than 50 years later, at the height of the English Civil War, it was “Resolved by the parliament: that no observation shall be had of the five and twentieth day of December commonly called Christmas-day; nor any solemnity used or exercised in churches upon the day in respect thereof”. The Puritans were now in the ascendant.