As Christmas draws nearer, the guest list for the royals’ traditional family festivities at Sandringham is taking shape: Tom Parker Bowles, food writer son of Queen Camilla, will be there at his mother’s request, he said in an interview with the Telegraph published Saturday. Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle, along with their children Archie and Lilibet, were reportedly left off the invite list as Harry’s estrangement with King Charles III and the rest of the royal family continues.
This is a change from Parker Bowles’ usual holiday routine, he said.
“For the past 15 years it has been: I go back to my ex-wife’s house, sit in my tracksuit bottoms, go to the pub while the beef’s in, then try to get my children to watch The Wild Geese. Classic,” he said. “So this would be a bit different.”
He said that the invitation to spend the holidays with the royals has always been open, and this year, he took his mother up on it simply because she asked him to. Camilla is still recovering from a bout of pneumonia, and Charles’ cancer diagnosis was shared with the public early this year.
“My mum said ‘I’d love you to come, I haven’t had Christmas with you for a long time,’” he said. “It has been a hell of a two years for them. The older you get, the more conscious you become of mortality, especially with illnesses and the rest of it.”
He said that his mother “went back to work before she should have done but she’s fine. She’s tough.”
And though Parker Bowles, who recently published a cookbook of recipes from members of the royal family through the ages, Cooking and the Crown, shared his most high-level Christmas plans, he kept it there, either not willing or not able to divulge details on any fellow guests or how they’d spend their time at the Norfolk estate.
“I genuinely know nothing about it,” he said. “I know there’s turkey and sprouts and church. And I have to bring a suit and a dinner jacket.”
