Prince William's Christmas tradition that makes Kate Middleton and the Wales children 'cross'

Prince William's Christmas tradition is something that he once admitted makes wife Kate Middleton and the Wales' children 'cross'.

• Prince William makes his wife and kids 'cross' when he plays a family board game.
• The Prince of Wales has opened up on his family Christmas traditions.
• This royal news (opens in new tab) comes as Royal fans spot missing detail in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Christmas card (opens in new tab).

Prince William has admitted he has a Christmas tradition that makes his wife Kate Middleton and his three children 'cross' each year.

The Prince of Wales took part in a special chat with Radio Marsden, that serves the Royal Marsden Hospital which specialises in cancer care, and during the conversation Prince William was quizzed by some children about all things Christmas.

And like many children and adults across the UK, Christmas is the perfect time to play boardgames and a youngster called Henry asked the future king (opens in new tab), "What is your favourite board game?"

To which Prince William, who is dad to Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven and Prince Louis, four, replied, "Henry, we are playing board games with the children quite a lot. We love Monopoly (opens in new tab), that's good and Risk, have you played Risk before?

"That's a good board game, it goes on for hours and usually everyone gets very cross because they lose. But that's what I like playing."

Risk can take several hours or even days to complete. 

But by playing Monopoly Prince William is breaking one of the late Queen's rules (opens in new tab), as the game used to get too 'vicious', instead the Queen preferred to play Bowling on the Wii Sports. (opens in new tab)

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In Risk, the goal is simple: players aim to conquer their enemies' territories by building an army, moving their troops in and engaging in battle. Depending on the roll of the dice, a player will either defeat the enemy or be defeated. This exciting game is filled with betrayal, alliances and surprise attacks. Defeat all of the enemy troops in a territory to conquer that territory and get one step closer to global conquest! The player who completes his or her secret mission first – and reveals the Secret Mission card to prove it – wins.

An updated version of the game is currently on offer, saving 36% on the RRP but such a shame it won't arrive before Christmas to spare the Wales' kids further pain. Maybe Kate can pick up Risk from Argos (opens in new tab) for the same price, as the new version has mission cards to "help speed up the game". 

It's understood that the game, when played with more than four people, lasts longer than an hour, so maybe that's the secret to keeping Kate and the kids happy - for William to play with fewer people.

But he's not the only one who struggles to keep the wife and kids engaged in board games, one Risk owner, said, "My daughter won the first game, well I had to engineer that one to keep her interested.

"She enjoys it, the wife not so much. Second game I won, third game my daughter triumphed again but by her own merit, she took on board to control Australia as soon as possible, I’ve also never seen anyone able to destroy massive armies or defend with so few troops.

They added, "This is still a game that can take a long time to complete, so don’t be tempted to add your rules or keep the cards counters sets to a fixed amount, it does speed up the game when you can trade in a set of cards that then increase the next time a set is traded in, eventually you can get large numbers of troops which can rebalance the game quickly or mop up the board."