The Prince and Princess of Wales have released their traditional Christmas card, with a touching nod to a moment of hope the family enjoyed during an otherwise “dreadful” year involving cancer treatment a spate of gruelling royal scandals.
William and Kate wrote on Instagram: “Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas” in posts on social media, accompanied by a video showing a card with a happy photograph of the family, as animate snow drifts through the frame.
The photo on their Christmas card appears to be a still taken from a video from earlier this year, when Kate announced she was cancer free.
The Prince and Princes of Wales released the card after skipping the annual royal pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, hosted by King Charles.
They have already reportedly travelled to Norfolk with their children ahead of the family’s normal Christmas celebrations at Sandringham, after what has been a grueling year for the royals.
Their year began with Kate having abdominal surgery and stepping back from the spotlight and royal engagements, which soon led to widespread conspiracy theories about what had happened to the Princess.
Partially in a bid to quell those rumours the family released an image of Kate with her children George, Charlotte and Louis on Mother’s Day, but the image only fuelled conspiracies after picture agencies took the unusual step of withdrawing a royal family photo on suspicions it had been digitally altered.
Kate, an amateaur photographer who has regularly released family photographs she has taken herself, was forced to issue a statement admitting that she occasionally “experiments with editing” and apologised for any “confusion”.
Friends told The Independent at the time she was very upset by the controversy and wanted to own the issue.
Later that month, she opened up in a rare and emotional video, confirming that she had been diagnosed with cancer, and would undergo a course of “preventive chemotherapy”.
It came after King Charles was diagnosed with cancer in February, and William said the combined illnesses had made for a “brutal” year.
“Honestly, it’s been dreadful. It’s probably been the hardest year in my life,” he said.
Speaking to British media while on tour in South Africa last month, he said trying to get through everything had been “incredibly difficult”.
“But I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done.
“But from a personal family point of view, it’s been, yeah, it’s been brutal.”
In September, the family released yet another deeply personal video with the Princess revealing she had finished treatemend and was cancer free.
“Despite all that has gone before, I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life,” she said.
