Christmas latest: Andrew's daughters join Royal Family at Sandringham without father - as King shares personal message

Earlier today (see our 13.20 post) we brought you the news that one lucky player in Arkansas has won a massive jackpot of $1.8bn.

They overcame odds of one in 292.2 million, but now face one key decision.

They can either take a lump sum of $834.9m before tax now or a gradual payout of the full sum over 29 years.

And here's what our readers think...

Thousands of you have voted (you can still vote below) but our readers are edging towards taking the full amount over nearly three decades.

More than 3,000 of you have voted and 59% of people want the gradual payout.

Meanwhile, 41% will take the lump sum upfront.

There's still time to vote though - have your say here...

Throughout the day, we're bringing you the stories behind the classic Christmas movies and songs that are bound to accompany you today...

Next up is the parental nightmare that turned into one of the most popular family movies of all time: Home Alone.

First released 16 November 1990

What's it about

A family forgets their eight-year-old son Kevin at home when rushing to catch a flight, leaving him to battle burglars on his own in the run-up to Christmas Day.

The story behind the film

Screenwriter John Hughes, a household name of 1980s coming-of age movies, got the idea for the film from a dark thought. 

He was making a list of things he didn't want to forget on his holiday - and wondered what would happen if he forgot his 10-year-old son. 

The movie turned this into a thought experiment that put the child up against what Hughes deemed kids' worst fear: burglars. 

It was implemented by a Christmas all-star team featuring director Chris Columbus and composer John Williams - who were behind the Christmassy family feel of the first Harry Potter movies.

The final puzzle piece was nine-year-old lead actor Macaulay Culkin. Columbus said he came up with the screaming pose on the film's posters himself.

Columbus told The Independent:

"One ear was kind of bent, he didn't look like other kids - but everyone who met him fell in love with him and for me, that's a movie star."

The impact

The film was relatively low budget but hugely successful, prompting a sequel in Manhattan, notably featuring a younger Donald Trump. 

But the cultural impact was perhaps more enduring.

The movie has topped several of the regularly scheduled polls of the UK's favourite Christmas films.

It's now cursed by Europeans for helping to popularise the English name Kevin across the continent: by 1991 it had become the most popular name for newborns in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

It's deemed a marker of lower social class and inspired the German term "Kevinismus" - the practice of giving children trendy, exotic-sounding names.

Why it's a Christmas classic

Kimberley Sheehan, lead film programmer at the BFI Southbank, says the movie has "many great ingredients", from quotable lines ("Merry Christmas, Ya Filthy Animal!") to iconic images such as Kevin screaming in the mirror. 

"It's such a thrilling film for children because Kevin is in charge... [It] has also reached an age now where audiences who watched it as children are now watching it with their own children and it's special and nostalgic for audiences to see the same humour and magic... spark something in their children."

Every year, the country holds its breath for the chance of a white Christmas.

And most years it's left wanting.

While one area has claimed a white Christmas this year (see our 9.27 post), most of the UK has simply seen cold weather warnings and wind.

There is still time for snow to fall (the Met Office definition of a white Christmas is for one snowflake to be officially observed falling in the 24 hours of 25 December), but the chances of it happening remain slim.

So that aside, here's what today's weather was actually like:

The UK Health Security Agency issued a yellow cold health alert from today until noon on 27 December, for the South West.

Similarly, the Met Office has put out a yellow weather warning for wind for a similar area and much of Wales, lasting Christmas Day.

Met Office spokesman Oli Claydon gives a run-through of the Christmas weather. Here's what he has to say:

"On Christmas Day, there will be a bright start in the south of England and then into Wales as well as the cloud clears. It will be cloudier further north, but there will be some cloud breaks starting to break through by lunchtime, and some good sunny spells establishing further north as well. The other notable factor will be the wind, so with the positioning of the high pressure, there is a quite strong easterly wind, particularly across the south coast of England, so it could be quite gusty there. High pressure is now firmly in control of the weather across the UK, bringing a much more settled spell, and also cooler temperatures than we've had of late."

The next few days are expected to be largely dry, with frost and freezing temperatures possible overnight and into Boxing Day.

Throughout the day, we're bringing you the stories behind the classic Christmas movies and songs that are bound to accompany your festive season...

This song may be both the archetypal Christmas hit and, at the same time, a very unusual one: White Christmas, performed by Bing Crosby.

First released 30 July 1942

What's it about

All you need to know is in the title and first line: the singer is nostalgic about the traditional - some may say cliched - Christmas they "used to know", which included snow and sleigh bells.

The story behind the song

The song about one of the most important Christian holidays was written by a legendary Russian-Jewish composer: Irving Berlin. He had not grown up celebrating Christmas.

His own accounts of the composition circumstances vary. But he probably wrote it in the sun. Hotels in California and Arizona claimed Berlin wrote it there "poolside". 

While unusual, the unseasonal setting makes sense: the composer was often in the west due to his Hollywood work, while his family remained in New York.

Accordingly, his first verse describes a sunny Christmas Eve in Beverly Hills with palm trees and green grass, prompting the singer to "dream of a White Christmas".

For obvious reasons, that first verse was left out of Bing Crosby's famous original recording.

Berlin called it "the best song anybody ever wrote" when he asked his secretary to transcribe it.

Still, the song was shelved for four years until he got it back out for the musical film Holiday Inn, starring Crosby.

Crosby reportedly commented on the song: "Irving, you won't have to worry about that one."

The impact

White Christmas was possibly the first commercially successful secular Christmas tune, selling more than 50 million units.

Even more so: the Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the best-selling (physical) single of all time - and by extension the best-selling Christmas song.

Berlin said: 

"When the song first became popular, I attributed it to the war and the fact that Christmas became peace."

Crosby's version was released at the height of the Second World War, when families were separated from loved ones serving in the army.

Berlin later said that as much as he'd "like to take a bow and say I anticipated its future success, I must admit I didn't".

A Christian pastor in the West Bank tells Paste BN he's "very grateful" for Pope Leo's Christmas message referencing Gaza, but he warns the enclave is still in desperate need of help.

"The situation in Gaza is catastrophic," is what reverend Dr Munther Isaac, a pastor at the Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Ramallah, in the West Bank, tells chief presenter Mark Austin.

He adds that he's "very grateful" that Pope Leo spoke about Gaza in his Christmas message (see our 10.28 post for his remarks). But he warns: "The catastrophe in Gaza is far from being over."

Watch him speaking here...

Throughout the day, we're bringing you the stories behind the classic Christmas movies and songs that are bound to accompany you today...

This one is the mother of all modern Christmas songs, but it took 40 years to get to No 1: Last Christmas by Wham!

First released 3 December 1984

What's it about

A very un-Christmassy Christmas break-up and the former lovers' reunion on Christmas one year later.

The story behind the song:

While it says Wham! on the tin, part of the folklore of Last Christmas is that George Michael was the driving force. 

In a recent documentary, friends revealed that Michael had a particular love for Christmas, as he could go out for carol singing in fancy dress without being recognised. 

He wrote Last Christmas at 21 in his childhood bedroom while bandmate Andrew Ridgeley was downstairs watching TV during a visit to Michael's parents. 

"When he came back down, such was his excitement, it was as if he had discovered gold," Ridgeley recounted. 

He later said Michael "felt undervalued as a songwriter and the best way to make a point was with No 1s" - a key motivation behind the Last Christmas album Make It Big.

The song was recorded half a year later, in August 1984. Michael locked himself in a studio that he covered in Christmas decorations and recorded all instruments by himself. 

The impact:

Last Christmas re-enters the Top 10 year after year around Christmas and was the eighth-best selling single ever in the UK. 

But, despite Michael's quest for No 1, his hit didn't reach the top spot until two years ago, after his death. 

In 1984, it was beaten by Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid - which Michael was also a part of.

Christmas may be the most wonderful time of the year for many, but for some of Britain's prime ministers, it can be a difficult day of crisis.

From wars, to economic woes and health issues - there has been no shortage of challenges facing the occupant of 10 Downing Street over Christmases past.

A listener to our Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Phil, sent in a question for our latest episode, asking which prime minister in history had the worst Christmas Day.

We asked historian Dan Snow to comb back through the history books to find out.

From crying so much the King lends you a hanky, to accidentally flashing the US president and lying to parliament while "full of opiates and amphetamines", there have been some rough Christmases for former PMs.

Listen to the episode here, or read on below...

You can WhatsApp the podcast at 07934 200 444 or email electoraldysfunction@sky.uk.

And if you didn't know, you can also watch Beth, Harriet and Ruth on YouTube.

By Rhiannon Mills, royal correspondent

It's a rare time of the year when the King can speak without seeking any guidance or advice from the government, which is what makes his annual Christmas message particularly personal and an insight into what really matters to him.

While the King doesn't mention any specific examples of division in the UK or global conflicts, his message, with its heavy emphasis on community - and we're told the themes of "kindness, compassion and hope" - appears to be one with a strong social purpose, and hints at his desire to play his part in healing divisions between communities and different countries.

Listening to him, you can't help but feel there is an underlying nod to the protests we've seen in the UK on migration, the St George flag movement, conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.

The appearance of a choir from Ukraine is the only clear display of a conflict he wants to draw attention to.

Watch: King Charles's Christmas message in full

The late addition of pictures from the aftermath of the Bondi Beach attack, an example of the importance he puts on being connected to all parts of the Commonwealth and what matters to people right now.

It's the most outward, rather than inward-looking message - deliberately so we're told.

There is nothing personal in it. No mentions of his health, and certainly no nods to what has been a very difficult year for the royals.

His message about learning from the past, as we continue to face difficult times, undoubtedly has its own resonance when you consider the headlines around his brother this week and more widely during 2025.

But, as he also encourages us to take a break from our screens, it's the broader message he conveys and how it relates to us all, that he would rather we focus on as we head into 2026.

We've already seen them going to church earlier, but here's a bit more on how the Royal Family will spend their Christmas Day.

We know the King, the Queen and their guests will enjoy a turkey lunch before sitting down to watch King Charles's address (see our 15.02 post for more on that).

Then, the monarch has chosen Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha's new film Christmas Karma as the movie to be screened at Sandringham this Christmas.

The film is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Throughout the day, we're bringing you the stories behind the classic Christmas movies and songs that are bound to accompany you today...

Next up, we bring you the story behind a quintessentially British movie inspired by a very American Tarantino smash hit: Love Actually.

First released 14 November 2003

What's it about

A star-studded cast acts out ten interconnected episodes of people finding and losing love in London and elsewhere around the holidays - including a cuckolded home-maker, a washed-up rock star and the UK prime minister.

The story behind the film

The film was the directing debut of Richard Curtis, the writer behind the Hugh Grant-powered British romcoms that conquered the world from the 1990s.

Originally, it had nothing to do with Christmas. Curtis started writing two separate scripts: one was the Love Actually storyline in which Colin Firth's writer falls for his Portuguese housekeeper; the other was the one in which Hugh Grant's prime minister falls for... well, one of his housekeepers. 

It was Quentin Tarantino's very un-Christmassy anthology-like film Pulp Fiction that prompted Curtis to interlink several such love stories. 

Christmas came in "halfway through the writing", Curtis said, because he's "always been very sort of emotional about Christmas".

The impact

Love Actually grossed six times more than it cost to make (some £180m), placing it among the highest-grossing Christmas movies ever. 

It added another chapter to the quintessentially British Curtis romcoms that made international audiences fall in love with the Cool Britannia of the Blair years.

But the morality rooted in the same era, including the lack of diversity, hasn't aged that well.

Kimberley Sheehan, lead film programmer at the BFI Southbank, notes the film was originally going to feature extra storylines with more diverse characters. 

An LGBT storyline was probably cut for time, she says, even if traces could still be found.

Not even those involved seem thrilled now: Curtis described his final arrangement of the different episodes as a "catastrophe" and regretted fat-shaming jokes and cutting the gay part.

Grant has bashed his famous dance scene at No 10 as "absolute hell". 

Why it's a Christmas classic

Sheehan says the stellar performance of the ensemble cast is "at the heart of the power of Love Actually".

"There is also an aspirational fantasy element to Love Actually which gives it strong appeal to international audiences. Although it’s deeply British, it presents a very shiny, cozy and glamorous London... There is drama in the storylines, but it is around relationship troubles and grief and the film shows love conquering all. 

Part of the film's fun is the unrealistic rules of its universe... Whether you enjoy these plot solutions or enjoy poking fun at them, they are iconic and distinctively Love Actually.