William and Kate release 2025 Christmas card featuring all five Wales family members
Royal couple share smiling family portrait as King Charles and Queen Camilla issue their own card.
Prince William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, released their 2025 Christmas card on Thursday, featuring a photo of all five Wales family members grinning from ear to ear. The card carries the message, "Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas," a Kensington Palace spokesman said when the image was released alongside the royal household’s holiday note.
The portrait was taken in April by photographer Josh Shinner and shows the couple with their three children in a candid, sunlit moment. Kensington Palace did not disclose further details about the shoot, but the shared image underscores the family’s emphasis on warmth and togetherness during the holiday season.
The card comes as King Charles III and Queen Camilla released their own holiday card earlier this month. Their Instagram caption read, "It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!" and accompanied a photograph described as taken in the grounds of Villa Wolkonsky in Rome during Their Majesties’ State Visit to The Republic of Italy in April. The king and queen’s card carries the message, "Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and New Year." The royal household confirmed the captions and details of the image as part of this year’s holiday communications.
Together, the releases align with a long-standing royal tradition of issuing annual Christmas cards that offer a glimpse into the family’s moments and travels across the year. The two cards, issued within weeks of one another, reflect the monarchy’s approach to sharing festive greetings while highlighting the varied engagements of the royal family over the past year.
The timing of the William–Kate card and the Charles–Camilla card also underscores how the royal family balances personal family images with official duties and state visits. The Rome photograph from the Italian trip, paired with the villa setting described in the caption, provides a moment of reference to a recent state occasion, while the Cambridge card foregrounds a private, family-focused scene. Analysts note that such cards serve not only as holiday greetings but as a subtle narrative device that presents the royals in a relatable, upwardly mobile light—upright, smiling, and united—amid a year of official engagements and public appearances.
While the specifics of how each card is produced remain private, the public statements and captions offer a window into how the royals curate their public image at year’s end. The contrast between the Rome-shot image and the more private indoor or outdoor settings often used in the Cambridge family’s card can reflect differing messages: a nod to international duties versus a focus on domestic family life. Regardless of format, the cards are widely anticipated markers of the holiday season for royal observers and fans around the world.