The rumoured royal Christmas dinner guest list has been shared after talk of William and Kate's absence from annual lunch

Oh to be a fly on that wall...

The British Royal Family Attend The Christmas Morning Service
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The royal Christmas dinner should prove to be quite the memorable affair, if the alleged guest list is to be believed.

Each year, the monarch — in this case King Charles since 2022 — hosts a big Christmas do at Sandringham. And his eldest son Prince William has let slip some juicy details about this year's event during a recent meeting with soldiers in Wiltshire.

"We’ll be in Norfolk, at Sandringham," he said of his and his family's Christmas plans. "We’ll be 45 for Christmas. It won’t be quiet, it will be noisy." Well, that's for sure!

While there's no real way to know exactly who every one of those 45 guests is, we do know who *won't* be at the royal party.

Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson will be skipping the event due to the latest scandal involving the Duke of York.

And more recently, it was reported that their daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie would also be absent from the family get-together. For the first time since the two royal women got married, they'll reportedly be spending the festive season with their respective in-laws, the families of Jack Brooksbank and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi.

With all that said, Tatler has done its very best to guess who might be pulling crackers with the King and Queen this year. Among their predictions are, of course, the five Wales family members; Prince Edward, Duchess Sophie and their two children; Princess Anne and her husband; Zara and Mike Tindall and their three children; Peter Phillips, his girlfriend and his two daughters; Lady Sarah Chatto, her husband and two sons; Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones and her father; Tom Parker-Bowles and his two children; Laura Lopes, her husband and their two children; Lady Gabriella Windsor.

Tatler also speculated that Princess Kate's family, the Middletons, could be in attendance this year, though this would be very unusual.

The news of this festive guest list comes just as rumours fly that Prince William and Princess Kate may miss the King's annual Christmas lunch on Thursday.

They may not be able to make it if they've already started travelling to Anmer Hall in Norfolk, as the venue has been changed back to Buckingham Palace from Windsor Castle the last couple of years, per Hello!. Still, nothing is confirmed at time of writing and we may have to wait and see.

Iris Goldsztajn
Iris Goldsztajn is a celebrity and royal news writer for Marie Claire. As a London-based freelance journalist, she writes about wellness, relationships, pop culture, beauty and more for the likes of InStyle, Women's Health, Bustle, Stylist and Red. Aside from her quasi-personal investment in celebs' comings and goings, Iris is especially interested in debunking diet culture and destigmatising mental health struggles. Previously, she was the associate editor for Her Campus, where she oversaw the style and beauty news sections, as well as producing gift guides, personal essays and celebrity interviews. There, she worked remotely from Los Angeles, after returning from a three-month stint as an editorial intern for Cosmopolitan.com in New York. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, she interned at goop and C California Style and served as Her Campus' national style and LGBTQ+ editor. Iris was born and raised in France by a French father and an English mother. Her Spotify Wrapped is riddled with country music and One Direction, and she can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.