THE SPANISH Royal Family this week released its annual Christmas card, which features a previously unseen picture of King Felipe VI, his wife Queen Letizia, and their daughters Leonor and Sofia.
The snap was taken on October 31, when Leonor, who is the princess of Asturias, swore allegiance to the Constitution in Congress on the occasion of her 18th birthday. The picture was taken inside Madrid’s Royal Palace, the location of a reception held after the ceremony in the lower house of parliament.
The inside of the card carries messages in Spanish and English wishing the recipient a ‘Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year’, and is signed by all four members of the family.
But is such a Christmas tradition of sending out a card a sign that Spain’s Royal Family is falling behind the times?
That’s the question that has been posed by online daily El Independiente, which points out that the Spanish royals are now the only family to still send out a card, along with England’s King Charles III.
The Danish royals, the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Prince of Monaco have all made the switch to online media, the newspaper explains.
In fact the Danish royal family has gone the extra mile this year, publishing a daily video since December 1 to celebrate the advent, as if their social media accounts were a calendar in the run-up to the festive season.
Prince William and Princess Kate, meanwhile, opted for a black-and-white posed family photo, in contrast to King Charles’s choice, which was a picture of him and his wife, Queen Camilla, wearing their crowns and robes after the Coronation earlier this year.
The Prince of Monaco, meanwhile, posed with his wife and children in front of a Christmas tree for their online greeting.
Of the European royal families, then, only King Charles and King Felipe opted for cards, and they are also the only ones to have reused an existing image rather than create something new.
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