The Queen has reportedly been forced to cancel another Christmas tradition in the face of the COVID-19 spike in the UK, leaving royal fans devastated.
It has been widely reported that Her Majesty has decided forego her usual trip to her Sandringham Estate in Norfolk this holiday season, instead spending Christmas and New Year at Windsor Castle.
The news comes just hours after it was reported that the Queen would be cancelling the annual Christmas Day walkabout at Sandringham, where the royals are usually out in full force.
All this comes off the new COVID-19 spike in the UK, as the Omicron variant is sweeping across the country.
The Queen has reportedly cancelled her annual trip to Sandringham.
(Getty)The decision not to travel to Sandringham has been made as a “precautionary measure” Hello! reported, though Buckingham Palace has not yet confirmed the reports.
“The decision was a personal one taken after careful consideration and is seen as a precautionary measure,” a source allegedly told the outlet.
They added that members of the royal family will still visit the Queen over Christmas, as is traditional, however they will travel to see her at Windsor and observe COVID-19 restrictions during the visits.
News that the royals will not be making their annual pilgrimage to Sandringham has left many royal fans disappointed, as the tradition has been honoured for decades.
On Monday it was reported that the Queen planned to restrict public access to her Sandringham Estate on Christmas Day, but that festivities would still go ahead.
Each year the royals gather there and do an annual “walkabout” as they head from the estate to St Mary Magdalene Church for the traditional Christmas morning service.
Locals often flock to line the path the royals walk to catch a glimpse of them, but The Mirror reported yesterday that the general public would be kept away from the royal walkabout this year..
“Of course, everyone would love everything back to normal – but the situation is anything but,” a source told the outlet.
The royal family traditionally make a public church appearance on Christmas Day.
(Getty)The decision was allegedly made protect the royals from the Omicron variant of COVID-19, though Buckingham Palace did not comment on the reports at the time.
With case numbers spiking in the UK, it’s easy to see why changes have been made to the traditional festivities we expect from the royal family during Christmas.
We’re used to seeing photos of royals like Prince William, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and even their children walking to St Mary Magdalene Church on Christmas morning, and photographers camp out to snap some of our favourite photos of the royal family there.
But it’s becoming clear that we will be missing out on those photos for the second year in a row, if reports of the Queen’s latest COVID-19 cancellation prove to be true.
The royal family’s traditional Christmas Day gathering at Sandringham was cancelled last year too, as many senior royals were in lockdown amid the pandemic.
The Queen and Prince Philip, who died in April, spent the 2020 holiday season in isolation at Windsor Castle, attending a private service on Christmas Day.
Meanwhile royals like the Cambridges and Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall spent the festive season isolating at their own royal residences.
Now, as the Queen faces her first Christmas without her husband of 73 years, it looks like things are going in a similar direction.
We won’t be seeing any photos like this one this year.
(Getty)There have already been reports of the Queen cancelling one major holiday event; a pre-Christmas lunch that was supposed to be attended by around 50 members of the royal family.
The lunch was set to go ahead on Tuesday at Windsor, but spiking case numbers reportedly prompted the Queen to put the festivities on hold in a bid to stop the spread before the holidays.
The Sun reported that the decision was made “with regret” from the Queen but that it would “put too many people’s Christmas arrangements at risk if [the lunch] went ahead”.
