The Queen in Buckingham Palace after recording her Christmas Day broadcast. Photograph: John Stillwell/AP
Kevin Rawlinson and agencies
The Queen will use her Christmas broadcast to urge people to keep up their hopes at the end of a year that has been marked by disasters, including deadly extremist attacks and a refugee crisis that has seen millions flee their homes.
The monarch will use her 63rd speech to emphasise her belief that light will overcome dark. And she will seek to remind the country that Christmas is a “time to remember all that we have to be thankful for”.
Addressing the nation in a prerecorded speech on Friday afternoon, she will say: “It is true that the world has had to confront moments of darkness this year, but the gospel of John contains a verse of great hope, often read at Christmas carol services: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,’” according to extracts issued by Buckingham Palace.
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The message will be broadcast on radio and television at 3pm (1500 GMT) on Christmas Day, as well as across many parts of the Commonwealth. It will also be posted on the royal YouTube channel.
It comes towards the end of a year in which a total of 130 people were killed in the attacks in the French capital, as well as a string of mass casualty attacks in countries including Tunisia, Nigeria and Syria. Added to those has been violence in Iraq and other countries, as well as a suspected terrorist attack that downed a passenger jet over the Sinai.
The Queen plans to note the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war by thanking those who served in the conflict. The Queen herself is a veteran of the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service.
She is shown at a desk adorned with three photographs, one of which shows the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their two children, George and Charlotte, at the seven-month-old princess’s christening in July.
The other two pictures show the Prince of Wales and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, on their wedding day in 2005, and the Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, leaning on walking sticks and laughing.
The Queen, Prince Philip and senior members of the royal family plan to attend church services on Christmas morning and spend most of the day at her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. There is usually a gala Christmas lunch after church, followed by a walk outside.
The Queen has carried on the tradition, started by her grandfather, George V, of giving a Christmas broadcast every year except 1969, when a documentary on the royal family was played instead.
