The holiday season is a magical time for children, especially those in the royal family. “We were at Sandringham in a big room with a long table covered with white cloth and white name cards,” Prince Harry recalls of a childhood Christmas in his memoir, Spare. “By custom, at the start of the night, each of us located our place, stood before our mound of presents. Then suddenly, everyone began opening at the same time. A free-for-all, with scores of family members talking at once and pulling at bows and tearing at wrapping paper.”

Harry’s fond memories of Christmas are centered around the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. First established in Tudor times, it was purchased in 1863 as a wedding present for the future King Edward VII and his new bride, Queen Alexandra. Relatively cozy by royal standards, the home has been the favorite place for the royal family to gather for the holidays for over a century.

Of course, since they are arguably the most famous family in the world, the Windsors’ holiday traditions have long been a source of public fascination. Presents are opened on Christmas Eve, in the German tradition. The modern royal family give each other gag gifts (the late Queen Elizabeth II loved her Big Mouth Billy Bass), which have reportedly included a “grow-you-own-girlfriend” kit from Kate Middleton to Prince Harry, and an “Ain’t Life a Bitch” shower cap presented to Queen Elizabeth II from Prince Harry.

On Christmas morning, the family walks to services at St. Mary Magdalene Church on the grounds at Sandringham. There, they greet well-wishers and the media. Then, it’s back to Sandringham for the family’s elaborate Christmas dinner. At 3 p.m., the family gathers around the television to watch the monarch’s prerecorded Christmas address.

But royal Christmases were not always so calm. On Christmas Day in 1066, the first Norman monarch, William the Conqueror, was crowned in Westminster Abbey. The service ended in chaos when a group of confused king’s guards outside the abbey set fire to numerous nearby houses.

For early British monarchs, the 12 days of Christmas, far from being a solemn religious event, were a raucous affair. The days of revelry were overseen by an appointed courtier known as the “Lord of Misrule,” who organized the numerous feasts, pageants, theatricals, and balls celebrated by the court. Exotic meats, including peacocks which were “roasted, gilded, and served in their own plumage,” were served, and wine was plentiful.

According to Hugh Douglas, author of the delightful A Right Royal Christmas: An Anthology, the days leading up to the Twelfth Night (January 5 or 6) were marked by vice and role reversal. Gambling, often shunned, was allowed and courtiers were allowed to actually beat the king (for a certain amount of time).

“An announcement was made ‘His Majesty is out,’ and at this signal, the king set aside ceremony and played as an equal with his companions,” Douglas writes. “When he won enough, or lost too much, he would give the signal for a second announcement, ‘His Majesty is at home’ on which he and his courtiers resumed their roles and it became less diplomatic to go on winning against him.”

Things really got crazy on Twelfth Night. Monarchs often “abdicated” for the day, in deference to whatever lucky courtier had found a bean (or pea) in the Twelfth Night cake. This person was crowned the king or queen of the bean. According to Douglas, in 1563, Mary Queen of Scots dubbed two of her ladies-in-waiting “queen of the bean.”

“Queen Mary herself helped to dress Mary Fleming in her own royal robes and jewels, and the fun became so fast and furious that the English ambassador in Edinburgh, Thomas Randolph, was stunned by the extravagance of the occasion,” Douglas writes.

However, the chaos of the holidays wasn’t always confined to innocent merriment. Troublemakers often took advantage of the Christmas season to harm their enemies. “Murder and mayhem were all too often a part of past royal Christmases,” Douglas writes. “The nomadic, insecure Henry I once cut off the right hands of those who had debased his coinage, and—a macabre touch—chose to do so at Christmastime. Thomas Becket was murdered by knights acting in the king’s name…on 29 December…. Charles I stormed into the House of Commons during the 12 days to arrest troublesome members.”

By Hanoverian times, the royal family had lost most of their true political power, and Christmas became a more sedate, family affair. According to A Royal Christmas by Louise Cooling, in the late 18th century, the German-born Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III, introduced the Christmas tree to the British royal family. One visitor to a children’s Christmas party thrown by Queen Charlotte at Windsor recalled:

In the middle of the room stood an immense tub with a yew-tree placed in it, from the branches of which hung bunches of sweetmeats, almonds, and raisins in papers, fruits, and toys…each child obtained a portion of the sweets which it bore, together with a toy, and all returned home quite delighted.

But the royal most associated with popularizing the Christmas tree in England was the German-born Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. The scholarly, serious prince had a soft spot for Christmas and seems to have let his hair down during the season. He composed a Christmas hymn, made 12-foot snowmen with Queen Victoria, played silly games with courtiers, and sought to recreate his homeland’s holiday traditions for his nine children.

“I must now seek in the children an echo of what Ernest [his brother] and I were in the old times,” Prince Albert wrote his stepmother, per Hudson “of what we felt and thought; and their delight in the Christmas-trees is not less than ours used to be.”

The Christmas feast was a multicourse extravaganza that would make many modern stomachs shrink in horror. There was a traditional baron of beef (sometimes weighing in at 350 pounds), a cooked boar’s head, and a giant woodcock pie. The household gorged on Windsor mincemeat, whose recipe called for 82 pounds of currants, 60 pounds of lemon and orange peel, 2 pounds of cinnamon, and 24 bottles of brandy.

The queen’s kitchens also worked overtime to make the over 100 plum puddings that Victoria gifted to her nearest and dearest. According to Cooling, the recipe made 300 pounds of pudding mixtures and included 150 eggs, a bottle of rum, a bottle of brandy, and four gallons of strong ale. Queen Elizabeth II would continue this tradition, gifting her employees a Tesco’s Finest Matured Christmas Pudding each holiday season.

Like most families at the holidays, the real focus was on the royal children. In his memoir, A King’s Story, David, the future Duke of Windsor (and briefly king) recalled the annual arrival of Santa Claus (who was actually a family servant) to Sandringham each Christmas Eve. “After bowing to the King and Queen, who would greet him jovially, Santa Claus led the company out of the saloon towards the ballroom. The double doors flew open before his advance, revealing in the center of the room a fir-tree,” Windsor wrote.

The royal children rushed in behind Father Christmas. “The children’s tables were in a far corner, segregated from the rest,” Windsor recalled. “This precaution was no doubt intended to safeguard a precious Fabergé jade masterpiece…from becoming the casualty of a wild shot from a toy gun or a misdirected football issuing from our direction. We children were always shown our presents last, and the suspense was agonizing. And when our turn came, the Ballroom floor was rapidly inundated with a sea of wrapping-paper, through which we pedaled and honked in toy motors. On the way home we might pass the village choir with its winking lanterns on its way to sing Christmas carols to the King and Queen.”

That was only the beginning, as, during the 12 days of Christmas, celebrations continued. The royal children put on theatricals at the private theater at Sandringham for King Edward and Queen Alexandra. “The king takes great delight in this show and has on more than one occasion acted as official prompter,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “He sits in a big armchair facing the stage and is on such good terms with many of the little actors and actresses that none of them are…afraid to appear.”

However, for the royal adults it was not all sleigh rides and mistletoe. Sending the correct season’s greetings could be an important diplomatic tool, and a misstep could cause an international incident. In 1906, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that King Edward VII had agonized over his official Christmas card that year, finally deciding to send one with an illustration representing the budding Anglo-Japanese alliance.

“The two leading figures in the foreground are a young and handsome British admiral in full dress uniform, leading forth the daintiest of Japanese Princesses, arrayed in the most exquisite of national costume. The confidence of the gallant admiral seems to reassure the somewhat shrinking Princess,” the Chronicle reported. “The whole political trend of the card is very evident. It plainly says, as strongly as a picture can say, that if Japan will come forth from her retiring position, the English government will make a place for her in the world politics, and assure not only moral support, but back it up with the power of the English fleet…warning Russia, Germany and other ‘powers’ who might be inclined to take the Anglo-Japanese alliance lightly.”

The holidays were also a time to give back to the servants, employees, and tenants who worked for the royal family. For many years, an annual servants ball was held during the 12 days. In 1921, the New York Times reported that King George V, Queen Mary, David, Prince of Wales, and an assortment of royals, including Prince Olaf of Norway, all attended the ball at Sandringham.

“More than 400 guests attended and the full program of dances was gone through,” the Times reported. “The royal party entering fully into the spirit of the gathering and remaining with their guests until a late hour.”

There were also innumerable gifts to buy for various family, friends, employees, government officials, and the extended royal families of the world. Queen Mary, known as a shopaholic (and maybe a kleptomaniac) was more than up to the challenge. “Who is the world’s biggest individual buyer of Christmas gifts?” the New York Times asked in 1931. “It would not be surprising if this distinction belonged to Queen Mary of England, who regularly buys between 700 to 800 Christmas presents and choses every one of them herself.”

Far from your typical jewels or fruitcakes, Queen Mary often gave her friends thoughtful, if eccentric, gifts. “Queen Mary’s friends must have been somewhat unnerved in 1929,” Hudson notes, “when she sent them brocade-covered miniature cupboards, with a helpful note explaining that these were to conceal their telephone in, as she considered phones to be ‘instruments of unparalleled vulgarity.’”

In 1932, the royals found a new way to reach not just those they personally knew but also their subjects. That year, King George V gave his first Christmas address to the nation in what has become a time-honored English tradition. But according to Hudson, not everything went smoothly. As he prepared to make his speech, the king settled heavily into his favorite wicker chair, breaking it in the process. “God bless my soul!” he exclaimed, per Hudson.

George V’s granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II would deliver the first televised Christmas address in 1957. In this speech, she touchingly humanized not only herself, but her family, stating:

My own family often gather round to watch television, as they are at this moment, and that is how I imagine you now. I very much hope that this new medium will make my Christmas message more personal and direct. It’s inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you, a successor to the kings and queens of history, someone whose face may be familiar in newspapers and films but who never really touches your personal lives. But now, at least for a few minutes, I welcome you to the peace of my own home.

Despite her noted nerves over the annual address, the queen reportedly loved Christmas. As a teenager, she and her sister, Princess Margaret, performed in pantomimes including Aladdin (in the audience was her future husband, Prince Philip) and Old Mother Red Riding Boots.

As queen, she adored playing charades on Christmas night, reportedly keeping the family up until midnight with the game. She also indulged in her favorite cocktail, the Zaza, which consists of one half Dubonnet and one half dry gin.

But not everyone was so fond of Christmases at Sandringham. Princess Diana supposedly hated these royal gatherings, as dramatized in the 2021 film, Spencer. She had bulimia and was unnerved by the tradition of guests weighing themselves on arrival and departure, and felt iced out by the royals after her separation from then Prince Charles in 1993. In 1994, she left directly after the church service at St. Magdalene, with plans to volunteer at a homeless shelter. But reporters were tipped off, and she astutely decided to cancel.

“If I had been photographed as some sort of lady bountiful,” she recalled, “my husband’s family would have been in an uproar, accusing me of a stunt.”

As the royal family grew, Queen Elizabeth welcomed her great-grandchildren to Sandringham with open arms—although she confessed they could be meddlesome around the decorated Christmas trees. “This is always the problem…. The children love knocking those off,” she told David Attenborough in 2018. “Well, my great-grandchildren do. And the great thing is to make them decorate it…and they’re a bit more careful.”

Overall, it seems that for such a public family, Christmas was often a happy, breezy time. Even Meghan Markle recalled being charmed by the family cheer in the Netflix series Harry and Meghan. “I remember so vividly the first Christmas at Sandringham,” Meghan said, “calling my mom, and she’s like, ‘How’s it going?’ and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. It’s just like a big family like I always wanted…. There was just this constant movement and energy and fun.”

Of course, like most families amusing misunderstandings do occur. “At dinner, I was sat next to H’s grandfather, and I just thought it was so wonderful. I was like, ‘Oh, we chatted and it was so great and I talked about this and talked about this,’” Meghan remembered. “[Harry] was like, ‘You had his bad ear. He couldn’t hear anything you were saying.’ I was like, ‘Oh, well, I thought it went really well.’”

While the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will probably not be at Sandringham this year, new family members will have a seat at the Christmas dinner. Queen Camilla’s children, Tom Parker-Bowles and Laura Lopes, along with their families, will be there for the first time. Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife, is now a welcome guest. There are also new traditions: On December 8, Princess Kate held her third annual carol concert, Royal Carols: Together at Christmas.

Although some things are changing, King Charles III seems intent on keeping many royal holiday traditions alive. “Charles has always been very, very fond of Sandringham,” royal biographer Ingrid Seward told People. “Christmas within any family is always about tradition. He will keep it the same as it ever was.”

One hopes he will keep his mother’s pure love of the holiday in his heart. Once, when a little boy asked Queen Elizabeth II if she believed in Father Christmas, she replied: “I like to believe in Father Christmas, yes.”