Together at Christmas: The Carol Service Catherine Made Her Own

Every December, for one evening, Westminster Abbey stops being a place tourists queue outside and becomes something closer to a very large sitting room. The great west doors open, 1,600 people file in past nurses and neighbours and Hollywood actors sitting shoulder to shoulder, and the Princess of Wales, not a lady-in-waiting, not a palace official, but Catherine herself, walks the nave to welcome them. This is Together at Christmas, and of everything Catherine has built in her fifteen years of public life, it is the most unmistakably hers.

It began, in December 2021, as a quiet thank-you to the country for getting through something none of us had lived through before. Five services later, it has become something rarer in royal life: an institution created from scratch, entirely on her own initiative, that keeps growing precisely because she has never let it get away from its original idea: ordinary people, doing extraordinary things, given the best seats in the house.

How the tradition began, in the middle of a pandemic

The first Together at Christmas carol service took place on Wednesday 8 December 2021, hosted by Catherine, then the Duchess of Cambridge, at Westminster Abbey. It was conceived as a tribute to the people who had kept communities running through the darkest stretches of the pandemic: carers, teachers, delivery drivers, NHS staff, volunteers who had shown up for neighbours they barely knew. There was no blueprint for it. Unlike most royal engagements, which slot into decades-old calendars of state visits and long-standing patronages, this was a format Catherine devised herself, working with the Royal Foundation, the charity she and the Prince of Wales run.

That first service set the template that has held ever since: carols from the Westminster Abbey choir, readings on a chosen theme from family members and well-known faces, musical performances from guest artists, and a congregation built almost entirely from nominations rather than titles. It was broadcast to the nation that Christmas, and has been every year since, proof that the format resonated far beyond the Abbey’s stone walls.

Who actually gets a seat, and why that matters

The genuinely distinctive part of Together at Christmas isn’t the choir or the celebrity readers. It’s the guest list. Each year, roughly 1,600 people fill the Abbey, and the great majority of them arrive by nomination rather than invitation in the traditional royal sense: put forward by the UK’s Lord-Lieutenants and by charities connected to the wider royal family for the quiet, unrewarded work they do in their own communities. A hospice volunteer sits near a Paralympian. A school caretaker sits near a member of the Cabinet. Nobody in that congregation is there because of rank.

That structure is deliberate, and it is the clearest signal of what Catherine wanted the event to be from the outset: not a royal Christmas card moment, but a genuine act of recognition for people who would otherwise never set foot inside Westminster Abbey, let alone be thanked publicly for what they do. It is also, practically speaking, why the service photographs so differently from a state occasion: warmer, less formal, full of ordinary faces the cameras linger on as much as the family in the front pew.

A theme every year, chosen with care

Each service is built around a single theme, and Catherine is closely involved in choosing it. The 2024 service, her first major public appearance after completing chemotherapy, centred on love and empathy: “how much we need each other, especially in the most difficult times of our lives,” as the Royal Foundation put it at the time. For 2025, the theme widened to love in all its forms and the connections that shape a life, with readings from Prince William, Kate Winslet, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Joe Locke, and performances from Hannah Waddingham, Katie Melua and the group Fisherman’s Friends.

The themes are never abstract for their own sake. They tend to trace, quite closely, whatever the country, or the family, has just lived through. That is part of what has made the service feel less like a fixed royal fixture and more like an annual, evolving conversation Catherine is having with the public.

The 2024 return: a carol service that became a milestone

No single Together at Christmas carried more weight than the one held on 6 December 2024. Catherine had spent much of that year out of public life following abdominal surgery and a cancer diagnosis announced that March. Her appearance at the Abbey that December, hosting the event she had built herself, was read across the world’s front pages as a clear, deliberate step back into public duties, chosen, notably, on her own terms and in a setting entirely of her own making. Readings that year came from Prince William, Richard E. Grant, Michelle Dockery, Sophie Okonedo and Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty; Paloma Faith and Gregory Porter performed. It was a reminder that this carol service had become, by its fourth year, something close to a personal landmark in her public story.

A family affair, not just a royal one

Together at Christmas has increasingly become a moment for Catherine’s own children to take part rather than simply attend. At the 2025 service, Catherine and Princess Charlotte opened proceedings with a piano duet, a detail that drew as much attention as any of the celebrity readings, precisely because it was so unshowy. Prince William reads every year without fail, and the wider family, including Catherine’s own parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, have attended in support. For an institution built around community and togetherness, the sight of the Princess’s own family taking an active hand in it has become part of the point.

From Westminster Abbey to the nation’s television screens

The service is filmed in early December and broadcast on ITV1 and ITVX on Christmas Eve, under the title Royal Carols: Together at Christmas, giving millions of households a version of the evening the 1,600 in the Abbey experienced first-hand. That broadcast reach is central to why the tradition has grown the way it has: what started as an in-person thank-you to pandemic-era volunteers is now a fixture of the British Christmas Eve television schedule, sitting alongside the King’s Christmas Broadcast as one of the two royal moments the country reliably tunes in for each December.

The choir, the carols, and the music that carries it

Musically, Together at Christmas has stayed close to tradition while making room for contemporary artists. The Westminster Abbey choir anchors every service with the carols audiences expect, the kind of repertoire that has filled the Abbey at Christmas for centuries, while each year brings a fresh line-up of guest performers spanning pop, soul and folk: Griff, Dan Smith, Olivia Dean, Gregory Porter, Paloma Faith and Fisherman’s Friends have all taken turns at the microphone beneath the Abbey’s fan vaulting. The blend of ancient choir stalls and modern voices is, in miniature, exactly what the whole event is trying to do: hold something very old and very British, and make it feel entirely current.

Why it still matters

Royal engagements come and go with the diary; very few are founded by the royal in question and fewer still outlive their first outing. Together at Christmas has now run for five consecutive years, growing in scale and ambition each time, and it remains recognisably Catherine’s: her theme, her guest list built from nominations rather than status, her family reading alongside her. It has become, in a quiet way, the clearest public expression of what she has said she wants her role to stand for: community, connection, and the people who rarely get thanked out loud. For more on the Princess of Wales and her public life, explore our Royal Figures stories.

Frequently asked questions

When did Together at Christmas start?

Together at Christmas began on 8 December 2021, hosted by Catherine, then the Duchess of Cambridge, at Westminster Abbey. It was originally conceived as a tribute to communities and key workers who had supported one another through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Who organises Together at Christmas?

The service is organised by the Royal Foundation, the charitable foundation run by the Prince and Princess of Wales, in partnership with Westminster Abbey.

How are guests chosen for the carol service?

Most of the roughly 1,600 guests each year are nominated rather than formally invited, put forward by the UK’s Lord-Lieutenants and by charities connected to members of the royal family, in recognition of community work such as caring, volunteering and public service.

Where is Together at Christmas held?

The service takes place at Westminster Abbey in London, filmed in early December each year.

When and where can I watch it?

Together at Christmas is broadcast on ITV1 and ITVX on Christmas Eve under the title Royal Carols: Together at Christmas.

Does the Princess of Wales choose the theme herself?

Yes. Catherine is closely involved in setting each year’s theme, for example, love and empathy in 2024, and love in all its forms in 2025, and the theme shapes the readings, music and guest performers chosen for that service.

Has Prince William taken part every year?

Prince William has given a reading at every Together at Christmas service since it began, alongside a changing line-up of actors, musicians and public figures.

Was the 2024 service significant for a particular reason?

Yes. The December 2024 service marked one of Catherine’s most significant public appearances following her cancer treatment earlier that year, and was widely reported as a meaningful step in her return to public duties.

Details of guests, themes and broadcast times are correct as of the 2025 service and may change; for the latest information see royalfoundation.com and westminster-abbey.org.