Prince William and Kate Middleton flouted royal tradition today to spend Christmas with the Middleton family, in Bucklebury, Berkshire.

While the Queen attended church at Sandringham, with her husband and other royals including Beatrice and Eugenie,  William and Kate joined Pippa, James, Carole and Michael at St Mark's Church in Berkshire.
Kate's morning sickness meant the young royals were given permission to skip the formal celebrations with the Monarch.

In her annual Christmas speech, the Queen spoke warmly about her own jubilee and the success of the London Olympics. the message was recorded in 3D for the first time ever.

Jacintha Saldanha, the royal nurse  who committed suicide after the Kate hospital hoax, had tried to kill herself twice before it has emerged.

Reports from her hometown of Mangalore in India are suggesting that Jacintha, who took her own life days after Australian DJs pretended to be the Queen and Prince Charles, took an overdose of pills during a family trip to India last year.

She recovered after being rushed to hospital, but nine days later the mother of two attempted suicide again after jumping from a building.

Jacintha, 46, spent days in intensive care and was put on a course of antidepressants for nine months.
Her brother Naveen Saldanha, 42, told the Times of India: “Jacintha never wanted the family to know of the incident and we played a behind-the-scene role. Even this incident was not discussed at home for the knowledge of it would have hurt my ailing mother Carmine.”

Pippa Middleton’s plans to be a superstar celebrity author are in tatters after she was knocked back for a second book by her publishers, Penguin, following disappointing sales and reviews for her debut effort.

She received a $500,000 advance for her party-planning book ‘Celebrate’, but it received a far from glowing literary reception – suitable for people who need “a recipe for ice” as one reviewer memorably remarked - and the manula was widely derided for its simplistic advice, including the gem that “turkeys are perfect for feeding larger gatherings”, but the young auteur was apparently not dissuaded from continuing her literary career.

According to the London Evening Standard, Pippa has ideas for a whole range of how-to manuals, and next on her hit-list is a keep-fit tome. (It might perhaps begin with the advice to ‘join a gym’ or ‘buy a pair of trainers’ in a ‘shop’, both activities which will require the use of ‘money’.)

Geneticists believe there is an even-money chance that William and Kate's baby could be born with red hair.

"For the child to have red hair, both parents need to be carriers," Alistair Moffat, director of a company caled BritainsDNA which carried out the research told the Daily Mail.
"Princess Diana and Prince Charles must both have been since Prince William’s brother, Harry, has gloriously red hair. The way the genetic dice fall, that means Prince William has a 67 per cent chance of being a carrier of the gene variant. The question remains, is Kate a carrier? As a result of our study, we can say she has a 38.3 per cent chance of being one. If those percentages are averaged, it is 52 per cent likely that Kate and Wills will have a red-haired child."

Some good news at last from the royal pregnancy – Kate’s feeling better, really, according to royal sources, and is hopeful that the worst of her acute morning sickness, hyperemesis gravidarum – is behind her.

Having been ‘50/50’ on whether or not she would be able to make it to Sandringham for the royal Christmas celebrations earlier this week, royal sources now say that William and Kate are hopeful that they will be able to announce either later today or tomorrow that they will be spending Christmas at the royal estate in Norfolk after all.

Their attendance at Sandringham will be expected to include making a public appearance at the local church on Christmas day and talking to the locals, as is customary. Last year, Kate spent over an hour talking to members of the public on Christmas day.

In yet another humiliation for Prince Andrew's dynasty, he is to be required to pay rent on the royal apartment occupied by his children, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, after their ousting from the family firm.

Still, its not a bad deal - he is only having to cough up about $30,000 to allow his two daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie to stay on in a four-bedroom apartment in the heart of London at St James’s Palace, according to The Daily Express's Richard Palmer.

Beatrice, 24, and Eugenie, 22, lost their taxpayer funded bodyguards and were excluded from the Jubilee balcony appearance by Prince Charles earlier this year. Charles is determined to 'slim down' the monarchy, and the the fifth and sixth in line to the throne have been told they must get jobs and will not be on the royal pay roll.

Prince William and Kate Middleton hosted 27 members of their staff on Tuesday Dec. 18 for a Christmas party and lunch at the Bumpkin restaurant in London's Notting Hill neighborhood, according to Us Weekly.

The mag reports that the pregnant Duchess "sipped soft drinks," and adds that her "health is improving" after dealing with acute morning sickness earlier this month.

Us adds: "The private bash wasn't extravagant, with everyone eating from the price-fixe Christmas Turkey menu, which cost a humble 30 pounds, or approximately $48, a head."

Charity bag-packing is something of a Christmas custom, and Charles and Camilla spent a few minutes packing Christmas hampers today at a London housing estate where waste ground has been converted in vegetable patches.

Like many men, Chaz struggled to do a neat job. As he packed the goods and attempted to tie a gold ribbon around the packages, Charles said to Camilla: "Have you really done all these, darling? I am really hopeless at this."

"Leave it to the expert," Camilla replied.

What to get the monarch who has everything? Politicians wrestling with that question today gave the queen a set of 60 placemats - and a chunk of the Antarctic twice the size of Great Britain.

The newly named Queen Elizabeth Land is a 169,000 square mile chunk of the British Antarctic Territory which makes up almost a third of Britain’s claim on the polar continent. The 60 placemats given as the queen attended a cabinet meeting today will probably be just as useful.

Veteran politician Eric Pickles later told the BBC that one can 'never have too many table mats' and the Queen now has the chance to put that claim to the test. Lucky her.

The Queen attended a meeting of the cabinet of the British government today, one of the final diamond jubilee events of the year.

Dressed in a royal blue coat, the Queen walked up the red carpet on the steps of No. 10 before standing chatting with the prime minister at the door to pose for photographs.

She is believed to be the first monarch to atend a cabinet meeting since King George III.  A former Cabinet Secretary said it was a testimony to the Queen's neutrality that Prime Minister David Cameron felt able to invite a monarch into the UK's decision-making body for the first time in hundreds of years.

Kate made her first trip out of doors last night since hyperemesis gravidarum became part of our vocabulary. She looked stunning in a green McQueen gown at the BBC's sports personality of the year award.

She attended for 45 minutes, long enough to hand out an award to cyclist Bradley Wiggins: "While the Duchess does not feel ready to attend a four-hour engagement, she is keen to show her support to the UK’s sportsmen and women at this prestigious event which caps a momentous year for British sport," said a  royal spokesperson.

Kate attended the event alone as her husband, Prince William, was on duty as an RAF Search and Rescue pilot.

Last time Pippa Middleton attended a wild party thrown by posh Parisian fashion progidy Arthur de Soultrait it didn't end so well after a pal pointed a toy gun at the paps.

That didn't stop the future queen's sister attending the celebrations of the launch of his new London store last night, and a breathless report from Tatler on Pippa Middleton sofa-dancing at the after-party last night follows (alas, no pics).

Pippa Middleton likes dancing on sofas, and so when Arthur de Soultrait's Vicomte A store launch party night went from polite to super fun, Pippa was the first to climb up on the upholstery and throw some moves. Charles Astor, Alex Marx, Victoria Aitken and Charlie Fellowes had also sauntered to the new flagship store on the King's Road for celebratory bubbles and a late-night shop, along with Ed Taylor who chatted to Olivia Grant and Diego Bivero-Volpe, while Henry Conway and Orlando Hamilton compared rings. Then Arthur led a lucky few over to the Brompton Club for dinner and dancing (some peoples were so desperate for an invite, they even offered to buy a place) and after a yummy three-course feast, Pippa jumped up on the sofas to dance and everyone followed, only stopping when the clock struck 3am.

Despite her surprise appearance at yesterday's BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, it seems unlikely Kate will attend the Royal family's Christmas celebrations at Sandringham this year.

The usually well-informed Mandrake column of the Telegraph is reporting that Kate will spend Christmas Day with her family at their house in Berkshire this year as she battles hyperemesis gravidarum, severe morning sickness.

“As things stand, Catherine and her family do not feel confident about her going to Norfolk,” one of her friends tells Mandrake. “They would rather that she stays a quick drive away from hospital. William will probably go to Sandringham, but they are not sure whether he will go for Christmas Day or later in the holiday.”

Before royal nurse Jacintha Saldanha took her own life, she left three suicide notes, it was revealed at the inquest into her death last week. One of the notes dealt with funeral arrangements, another criticized the hospital and other staff members but in the third note she DID blame the two radio DJs who made a prank call pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles for her death, it was claimed over the weekend.

The revelation will heap more pressure on 2DayFM DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian who have gone into hiding following the tragedy, although the Australian authorities have specified that their investigations will focus on the part played by the radio station and that legally at least, the DJs are in the clear.

The Mail on Sunday reported yesterday that Jacintha, “wrote a short letter in which she expressed her deep anger at the Australian radio presenters and blamed them for her tragic death”.