From one royal duke and duchess, a traditional shot: relaxed grins, rumpled jeans, and armfuls of beaming children. From another, an artful black and white photograph of a tender newlywed embrace.
Kensington Palace has released images of the Christmas cards sent by William and Kate, and Harry and Meghan, revealing that the quiet determination shown by the Duchess of Sussex since becoming a royal to do things her own way extends to the couple’s seasonal greeting.
Harry and Meghan’s unconventional and highly personal Christmas image – sent to an undisclosed number of close personal friends, family, staff, charity contacts, media and (who knows?) probably Oprah – was taken at their wedding reception in May, as they watched a fireworks display across the lake at Frogmore House in Windsor, soon to become their home.
The future for this loved-up and now expectant couple is explosive, it seems to say. Alternatively, they may simply want to wish their friends a happy Christmas.
Politicians, of course, are well used to the over-literal reading of their Christmas cards, which may be why the prime minister, Theresa May, opts each year to send cheerful but determinedly unrevealing cards showing festive scenes drawn by children in her constituency. Christmas means Christmas, you see, and this year, as ever, nothing has changed.
Jeremy Corbyn, by contrast, has opted for a photo of his cat, El Gato, curled up in front of a roaring fire – though whether the Labour leader allowed his own Islington hearth to be dressed with stockings, baubles and tinsel for the seasonal shot is questionable. More troubling, perhaps, is the fact that the cat seems uncomfortably close to the flames. Having previously expressed a concern that his cat is a Tory, on account of its “disappointing individualism and lack of concern for others”, is there something Corbyn isn’t telling us?
Some cards, however, plead quite openly to be over-analysed – few more so than Ed Miliband’s offering, which shows the former Labour leader leaping from behind the “Ed stone” on which, for reasons unknown, Labour carved its 2015 election pledges, and beneath which it soon buried its campaign. The words have been doctored to quote the now notorious tweet from his then opponent David Cameron (remember him?) offering a choice between “stability and strong government” with the Tories or “chaos with Ed Miliband”.
“Happy holidays!” declares the man Cameron defeated. At least someone is enjoying themselves.
