The Queen’s Christmas Messages

The history of the Queen’s Christmas Message

At 3pm on Christmas Day, something will happen that the vast majority of the UK have never experienced before, and only those in their late 70s or older will have any memory of. Charles III will deliver the King’s Christmas Message. The last time that happened was in 1951 when a very ill King George VI delivered his final Christmas Day message from Sandringham. The message was pre-recorded and broadcast on radio by the BBC, in the UK and across the world. Queen Elizabeth II delivered her first Christmas Queen’s Christmas Message from Sandringham in 1952, sitting in the same chair that her father, George VI, and grandfather, George V sat in. She first allowed the television cameras in to film her Christmas Message in 1957, which was the 25th anniversary of her grandfather’s first Christmas Message. In 1959 she pre-recorded her Christmas Message to allow it to be sent to the Commonwealth in time for a 3pm broadcast on Christmas Day. With the live messages, it meant that Australia and New Zealand were actually hearing the Christmas Day message on Boxing Day! From then on, it has been pre-recorded and has been a centrepiece of the television schedules every year, with just two exceptions. The first exception was in 1963 when she reverted to a radio broadcast as she was heavily pregnant with Prince Edward. It’s interesting to consider that her condition would not be considered any hinderance nowadays, but they were different times. The second exception was in 1969, the year that the Royal Family documentary was shown and Prince Charles’ Investiture as the Prince of Wales took place. She felt that those two broadcasts had led to quite enough coverage of the Windsor’s that year! The BBC ignored that concern by re-broadcasting the Royal Family documentary simultaneously on BBC1 and BBC2! Instead of reverting to a radio broadcast she issued a written message. In 1997, the message was shared on the internet for the first time. Her final Christmas Message was broadcast on Christmas Day 2021 and reflected the death of Price Philip as well as looking ahead to her Platinum Jubilee.

The content of the Christmas Message

When you look at the speeches year by year, one thing becomes clear. These were not occasions for Queen Elizabeth II to indulge in platitudes. By reading them, you get a real sense of the Queen as a person. She spoke of the Christian faith in her messages, especially in the latter half of her reign. Although it perhaps became increasingly remote to many lives, she made a point of reflecting on the central message of Christmas as she saw it. From 2000, where she considered the role of faith in communities and reflected what she called ‘the true millennium’ marking 2000 years since the birth of Jesus, her own personal declarations of faith became a central part of her messages. In her position as monarch of an increasingly secular society, it can be seen as a clear representation of her role as Defender of the Faith.

In many years she reflected on occasionally controversial social issues. For example, in 1966 she talked about the role of

‘women who have breathed gentleness and care into the harsh progress of mankind. The struggles against inhuman prejudice, against squalor, ignorance, and disease, have always owed a great deal to the determination and tenacity of women.’

These are the words of someone who used her position to talk about people who were otherwise marginalised. Two years later, in 1968, she subtly paid tribute to Martin Luther King, who was assassinated that year by talking about the brotherhood of man which

‘means nothing at all unless the brotherhood, starting with individuals, can reconcile rival communities, conflicting religions, differing races and the divided and prejudiced nations of the world.’

In 1972, 1974 and 1977 she mentioned the conflict in Northern Ireland, and, in the first of those years, she forward with hope to the entry of the UK into the European Economic Community. As her grandchildren were born, she often talked about the lessons that the old could learn from the young, especially in 1984 where she said

‘We could use some of that sturdy self-confidence and devastating honesty with which children rescue us from self-doubts and self-delusions. We could borrow that unstinting trust of the child for its parents for our dealings with each other. Above all, we must retain the child’s readiness to forgive, with which we are all born and which it is all too easy to lose as we grow older.

Finally, she reflected an ongoing fascination with technology and a willingness to embrace it that stemmed, in many ways, from the influence of the forward thinking Prince Philip. As she said in her final Christmas Message last year

‘His sense of service, intellectual curiosity and capacity to squeeze fun out of any situation – were all irrepressible. That mischievous, enquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes upon him.’

I cannot think of a better tribute than that to the love of ones life.

The future

Clearly, King Charles II will have a very different style to his mother in terms of his delivery, but perhaps his passions and preoccupations will be similar. One thing is for sure, however, it is a very tough act

Queen Elizabeth II 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022