The Queen's sweet gesture to great-grandchildren at Christmas revealed

Her Majesty the Queen had a tradition for the younger members of the royal family. 

• Queen Elizabeth loved having all her family around her at Christmas.
• The proud great-grandmother of 12 children took the time to make them all feel special during the festive period.
• This comes after Kate Middleton said Christmas was going to be ‘very different’ this year after the Queen’s passing.

The festive period is a very special time for the royals, with the whole family coming together at Sandringham House.

But things are expected to be a lot different this year, as it’s the first Christmas since Queen Elizabeth II sadly passed away.

Looking back at royal traditions, former butler Grant Harrold, who worked for King Charles between 2004 and 2011 at Highgrove, has revealed a sweet gesture the Queen used to do for her great-grandchildren.

Grant previously told The Mirror, “I heard that at Sandringham, the Queen used to arrange for one of the trees in one of the rooms to be left bare for the kids to decorate it.

“It was a tradition that she started, and the grandkids would come in and they would all do a bit of decorating, which I thought was always quite a nice idea.”

The former Monarch has a total of 12 great-grandchildren from the eldest Savannah Phillip, 10, to the youngest, Sienna Elizabeth Mapelli Mozzi, born in September this year.

This comes after the Princess of Wales revealed the Queen always used to leave a surprise for the kids in their rooms when they came to stay.

During an interview with ITV for the documentary Our Queen At 90 which aired back in 2016, Kate Middleton said she “always left a little gift or something in their room when we go and stay, and that just shows her love for her family.”

We don't know what the gifts were, but we're guessing anything from toys to books, or even sweet treats.

In the same documentary to mark the Queen's 90th birthday, Kate added to the cameras, “The Queen was really thrilled that it [Princess Charlotte] was a little girl.

"I think as soon as we came back here to Kensington she was one of our first visitors here. I think she’s very fond of Charlotte. She’s always watching what she’s up to.”

Meanwhile, Kate recently dedicated a carol service to the Queen, saying this Christmas will feel "very different" without the late monarch.

In a pre-recorded introductory message for the Together at Christmas carol service, Kate says the Queen "held Christmas close to her heart".

The service was filmed on December 15 and was attended by more than 1,800 people at Westminster Abbey.