Queen's Christmas Message To Highlight Family And Community

The Queen's Christmas Message

The strength of family, friends and the community working together will be highlighted by the Queen in her Christmas message to the nation.

:: The Queen made her first Christmas broadcast in 1952 and the annual message was first shown on TV in 1957.

:: In that first broadcast she delivered her message live on the radio from her study at Sandringham, Norfolk.

:: She has delivered one every year except in 1969, when she decided the royals had been on TV enough after an unprecedented family documentary. Instead, her greeting took the form of a written address.

:: In her 1991 message, the Queen silenced rumours of abdication as she pledged to continue to serve.

:: She issued a writ against The Sun newspaper after it published the full text of her 1992 broadcast two days before transmission. She later accepted an apology and a £200,000 donation to charity.

:: The Queen's grandfather, King George V, delivered the first royal Christmas broadcast live on the radio from Sandringham in 1932.

:: George V was at first unsure about using the relatively untried medium of the wireless, but eventually agreed.

:: There was no Christmas broadcast in 1936 or 1938, and it was the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 that firmly established the tradition.

:: This year the Queen delivers her address from Buckingham Palace and it has been produced for the first time by Sky News.

:: The speech is written by the Queen herself and each has a strong religious framework, reflects current issues and often draws on her own experiences.

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