To quote Kensington Palace:
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are pleased to share a new photograph of their family. The image features on Their Royal Highnesses’ Christmas card this year. The photograph was taken earlier this year by @ChrisJack_Getty at Kensington Palace. pic.twitter.com/p8jm6zDfl0
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) December 18, 2017
And also to quote my esteemed colleague, who said what we were all thinking:
Where is Kate’s other arm?!? I can’t think why there is no trace of it unless she is grabbing Wills’ bum. Which, Godspeed, obvs -H https://t.co/MlSGOOl4wV
— Heather & Jessica (@fuggirls) December 18, 2017
Other than Kate’s missing arm, this is a perfectly nice family photo, I guess — the kids are very cute (George is clearly like PLEASE LET’S GET THIS PHOTO TAKEN SO I CAN RUN AROUND IN CIRCLES TWO THOUSAND TIMES THANK YOU VERY MUCH MOVE IT ALONG! which is why William is holding onto him; Charlotte is winsomely delighted by how well that morning’s chemistry experiment went), and Wills and Kate look photogenic as usual. But!
(a) It is NOT very festive AT ALL, and nor is it very…I don’t know. Cozy. One of you on Twitter said it looks sort of like a stock photo and this is very true. The Cambridges have a history of very warm and homey family pics – remember this one, where Charlotte’s shoe has fallen off? Or this great one of them in the window where George is in love with the dog and his wee sweater says GEORGE? Or this series of George sitting on the steps making sweet little old man faces? This feels, comparatively, fairly antiseptic.
(b) They obviously took this one over the summer because Kate isn’t visibly pregnant (and I suspect she is not invisibly pregnant, either) and all I can think is that someone came wandering into their office last week and said, “we just need your final decision on the photo for your holiday card,” and William and Kate screamed in unison, “THAT’S what we forgot to do!” and then Kate started rummaging around in her top desk drawer. “Damnit,” she muttered. “We’ve got to have one in here somewhere that we can use.” And then Wills is like, “why don’t we just go outside and take one now?” and Kate has to point out that Charlotte’s just cut her own bangs and also Meghan and Harry are coming to stay for ALMOST A WEEK and they get there on Friday and she has DONE NOTHING so she has NO TIME FOR THIS RIGHT NOW and then he just scampers into the other room. Royals. They ARE just like us.
[Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images/REX/Shutterstock]
