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This is why the Queen keeps her Christmas decorations up for a month longer than everyone else

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From House Beautiful

The Queen can literally do what she wants and she exercises that right in various ways, including when it comes to her Christmas decorations.

As the traditional rules go (i.e. if you're superstitious), Christmas decorations should be taken down either on 5 or 6 January. That's because those dates coincide with the Twelfth Night and the Epiphany – the end of the 12 days of Christmas.

Photo credit: Bettmann - Getty Images
Photo credit: Bettmann - Getty Images

But the Queen? She ignores the rules completely, apparently opting instead to keep her decorations up until 6 February – a full month after everyone else.

It's an odd tradition, but interestingly it's not just because the monarch gets a bad case of the January blues – there's actually a very sentimental reason behind it.

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6 February marks the anniversary of her father, King George VI's death, who passed away in 1952 at Sandringham House where the royal family spends Christmas. Every year, a few days before Christmas, Queen Elizabeth travels up to the Norfolk estate by train (she goes on a public train but reserves the whole carriage). According to Hello!, she stays at Sandringham until early February to mark the anniversary before returning to Buckingham Palace.

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

It's for that reason the decorations stay up at Sandringham until Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip end their festive stay. It is reported, however, that the decorations at Sandringham are far more understated than the extravagant ones put up at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace each year.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are always the last to leave Sandringham for Christmas. Some members of the royal family head off quite swiftly, but the likes of Prince William and Kate Middleton, who own a house on the Norfolk Estate, Anmer Hall, stick around a little longer.


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