Who’s on King Charles’ Christmas guest list: The 43 Royals with a coveted invitation to Sandringham, the Princess ‘torn’ over where to go…and who is definitely NOT welcome

In 2024, King Charles hosted the biggest family Christmas ever at Sandringham; However, this year’s guest list will be a little sparser due to the controversy surrounding his little brother.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson have been told they are not welcome at the celebrations following a series of revelations about their dealings with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

It will be the second year that the king’s brother and his ex-wife have not attended. Last year, they pulled out of the celebrations just 10 days before Christmas after Andrew’s links to alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo were revealed.

The former couple will spend one last Christmas at the Royal Lodge, which they will vacate at some point next year, while their two daughters remain in an awkward situation.

Feeling Princess Beatrice, ‘torn between her loyalty to the King and her family’, reportedly decided to spend the festive season on a ski trip abroad with her husband, children and friends.

Princess Eugenie, 35, faces a similar dilemma and may stay away from her family over Christmas, but it remains to be seen whether she will accept the King’s invitation to join the rest of the family at Sandringham.

Both princesses attended the Royal Family’s early Christmas party at Buckingham Palace last week without their parents.

Meanwhile, despite Charles’ fragile truce with his son Prince Harry – the pair had tea together at Clarence House in September – it is out of the question for the King’s estranged son and his family to join the Royal Family for Christmas.

Even without the Sussexes and York siblings, the guest list has grown in recent years as the late Queen Elizabeth relaxed the rule that meant spouses of family members could only attend if they were married.

In 2006, he relaxed this rule and extended an invitation to Kate Middleton, Prince William’s then-girlfriend; he politely declined and insisted on adhering to tradition until an offer came along.

But in the last 10 years, unmarried couples have joined, such as Samuel Chatto, son of Princess Margaret’s daughter Lady Sarah, who brought his girlfriend Eleanor Ekserdjian in 2024.

Peter Phillips’ fiancée, Harriet Sperling, is expected to add a new name to the festivities this year.

Moreover, Queen Camilla invited members of her side of the family to participate, which increased the numbers even further.

All this meant that even without Eugenie and her family, there would have been 39 people at the dinner table. So who will attend the King’s three-day Christmas celebration?

Sarah also failed to make it onto the stage last year after attending the festivities in 2022 for the first time since 1992 (though not for the church ride); After Andrew’s links to an alleged Chinese spy were revealed. But in 2023, he also joined other royals on Christmas Day church visits.

22 core members of the Royal Family are expected to attend

The King and Queen will, of course, be accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children Prince George (12), Princess Charlotte (10) and Prince Louis (7).

The hope of catching a glimpse of young people on their way to church attracts great attention from well-wishers who gather together every year.

The king’s other brother, Prince Edward, is also expected to attend with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, his 17-year-old son James Viscount Severn and his 22-year-old daughter Lady Louise.

Meanwhile, Princess Anne’s family has plenty of space around the table: her husband, Vice-Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence; daughter Zara and son-in-law Mike Tindall with their three children Mia, 11, Lena, seven, and Lucas, four; and son Peter Phillips with their two daughters, Savannah and Isla.

Earlier this year, Peter announced his engagement to girlfriend Harriet Sperling.

Now that the rule that only married couples can attend has been relaxed, it’s likely King Charles will ask her to join the family.

He has previously met the King, Queen and members of the wider family at events such as Royal Ascot.

Question mark about Princess Eugenie and her family

Princess Beatrice attended last year’s meeting with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, her nine-year-old stepson Christopher Woolf and her four-year-old daughter Sienna.

There’s a new addition to the family this year, eight-month-old Athena, but she won’t be spending her first Christmas with the royal relatives after Beatrice decided to holiday with friends to avoid awkwardness.

Her sister Princess Eugenie is still welcomed along with her husband Jack Brooksbank and their children August, 4, and Ernest, 2.

Last year he spent Christmas at his second home in Portugal and now must decide between accepting the King’s hospitality or supporting his beleaguered parents as they prepare to spend their final Christmas at the Royal Lodge before moving.

Andrew was stripped of all his royal titles in October after a leaked email, published by the Mail on Sunday, proved he had lied in an interview with BBC Newsnight when he claimed he had ‘no contact’ with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein after they were photographed together in New York in December 2010.

The Mail also revealed an enthusiastic email in which his ex-wife Sarah called him a ‘loyal, generous and outstanding friend’ just weeks after publicly disavowing Epstein.

Andrew, 65, faces further embarrassment after new images of him emerged as part of the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice.

In one of the photos, the former prince is seen lying on the knees of five women in one of the Royal Family’s most valuable rooms at Sandringham Estate, his face smiling next to one woman’s bare legs.

Behind her stand Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s grinning pimp, and another unidentified woman who had a black box placed over her face by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Although there is no context to the newly released photo, the image raises new questions about what the disgraced royal knew about Epstein and the billionaire pedophile as he brought his sex-trafficking girlfriend into the Royal Family’s inner sanctum.

9 family members of Queen Camilla

The Queen’s son Tom Parker Bowles, 50, could join his mother again at Sandringham with daughter Lola, 17, and son Freddy, 15, after making his debut last year.

At the time, Camilla was recovering from a bout of pneumonia, while her husband had been diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer earlier that year.

Describing his mother as a ‘resilient woman’ Daily Telegraph: ‘My mother said, ‘I would love for you to come, I haven’t spent Christmas with you in a long time.”

He added: ‘The older you get, the more conscious you become about mortality, especially in relation to diseases and other things.’

Her sister Laura Lopes, her husband Harry and their children Eliza, 15, and twins Gus and Louis, 14, are also expected to be invited, as well as Camilla’s sister Annabel Elliot.

He is one of the Queen’s close personal assistants; They are a group known as Ladies in Waiting, but Camila has taken the name The Queen’s Companions.

8 representatives of Princess Margaret’s family

The family of the late Queen’s only sister, Princess Margaret, are stalwarts of Royal Christmas celebrations.

While members of the extended family are invited to Christmas dinner at Buckingham Palace ahead of December 25, there is always a seat at the table for King Charles’s first two cousins ​​and their families.

Artist Lady Sarah Chatto and her husband Daniel and their children Arthur, 26, and Samuel, 29, are also expected to be there. It is possible that, like last year, Samuel will attend with his girlfriend Eleanor Ekserdjian.

They will be joined by Lady Sarah’s brother David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, and their children Lady Margarita, 23, and Charles, 26.

No invitation was sent to Montecito

Amid rows over security and a row with the Royal Family, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and their two children Archie, six, and Lilibet, four, are unlikely to attend.

However, there appears to have been a slight thaw in relations since their last visit to Sandringham in 2018.

In September, the 41-year-old Duke reunited with his father, King Charles, during a four-day trip to the United Kingdom for the first time in 18 months for a face-to-face meeting lasting less than an hour in London.

Seemingly on an olive branch, she later said that “the focus really needs to be on my dad” next year.

This was tempered by a series of tell-all interviews and a declaration that his ‘conscience was clear’ after his memoir Spare.

During a sit-down interview Guard He said the following in Kiev, where he stopped after his ‘so-called royal tour’ in Britain: ‘I know that [speaking out] It makes some people uncomfortable and goes against the narrative.

‘Book? A number of fixes have been made to already existing stories. A point of view had been put forward and needed to be corrected.’

He added: ‘I don’t believe I aired my dirty laundry publicly. It was a tough message but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear.

‘This isn’t about revenge, it’s about responsibility.’