The Queen Just Canceled A Huge Royal Event

Queen Elizabeth is someone who has taken the global pandemic so seriously that she's spent the better part of the last two years at Windsor Castle, keeping her social distance away from not only her couriers, but other senior members of the royal family, too. During her address to the people of Great Britain back in April 2020, she urged everyone to keep calm despite the lockdown and the difficulties many families faced while being separated from loved ones. "Together we are tackling this disease, and I want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it," the queen said.

If that weren't enough, both the queen and her late husband Prince Philip were one of the first few to have gotten their COVID-19 vaccines back in January. According to the BBC, the queen said the jab "didn't hurt," and also urged other Brits to get the vaccine in order to help curb the spread of the virus. "Well, once you've had the vaccine you have a feeling of you know, you're protected, which is I think very important, and as far as I can make out it was quite harmless," the queen said, while also urging others to "think about other people rather than themselves." With that in mind, no one is surprised that Queen Elizabeth has just made the move to cancel this huge royal event, despite hoping that everyone in her family would be there.

For Queen Elizabeth, it has been a longstanding tradition to invite the entire royal family for celebratory Christmas family lunch at Windsor Castle. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lunch didn't happen in 2020, and it looks like it won't happen in 2021, either. 

According to People, the queen has decided to scrap those plans due to the increase of COVID-19 cases in the U.K., mostly brought on by the new Omicron variant, forcing many London businesses to close. To make matters worse, this will also be Elizabeth's first holiday season without her husband Prince Philip, who died back in April at the age of 99. The holiday gathering was supposed to be a way of bringing back some normalcy into everyone's lives. "Whatever her private grief is, she wants to get on in as cheerful a way as possible," one insider close to the situation said.

While the Christmas decorations are certainly up at Windsor Castle, it looks like this year's festivities will look solemn compared to years past.