Queen Elizabeth is currently at Windsor Castle and planning for a very different holiday season. “She is accepting of it,” says royal historian Robert Lacey for People Magazine.
Queen Elizabeth is summoning her usual stoicism as she faces a very different Christmas season.
The Queen, 94, typically hosts a series of holiday traditions that have become highly anticipated by royal fans on Christmas Day and the days leading up to it. But with her family split this year — Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and their son Archie are more than 5,000 miles away in California — and the coronavirus pandemic still affecting how people can gather, it will be very different.
“Christmas is something the Queen has always done with enormous, genuine family style, and is facing not doing so sadly,” royal biographer Robert Lacey, author of Battle of Brothers, says in this week’s issue. But “she is accepting of that.”
Like many families, the Queen is waiting to see what kind of family events will be possible when the U.K. government announces updated guidelines amid the current lockdown in England. But she and her staff have already canceled the annual sparkling reception for diplomats and embassy staffs who are usually entertained at Buckingham Palace in early December. The holiday party for her extended family at the palace later in the month has also been called off.
Robert Lacey is the author of Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult.
