Kate and William reveal poignant Christmas card

The Prince and Princess of Wales have unveiled a Christmas card with a personal meaning using a photo taken from the video released when Catherine announced the end of her chemotherapy.

The emotional video, with its emphasis on family and supporting each other in difficult times, was shot in Norfolk in August.

The personal video from Catherine, at the end of treatment after her cancer diagnosis, had the message “out of darkness can come light”.

The image used for this year’s card, by filmmaker Will Warr, shows Prince William and Catherine and their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.

The card, with its very personal links to a difficult year for the couple, has already been sent out in the post but has now been revealed on social media.

The card contains the message “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”.

Catherine has gradually returned to public duties following her cancer treatment.

She went to meet the families of those left behind in the city Southport knife attack in October, and some of those families were among the guests at Catherine’s Christmas carol servicewhich she hosted this month at Westminster Abbey.

Prince William said this has been a “brutal” time for their family and described the past year as the “hardest year” of his life.

The video of Will Warr used for the Christmas card was seen as a strikingly different approach to releasing a royal message.

It was a health update in September that explained Catherine had finished her chemotherapy, but it had a much more personal style and an unabashedly emotional message.

“Life as you know it can change in an instant and we’ve had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and the unknown path,” she said in a voiceover for the video, which showed photos of the family in the Norfolk countryside.

It was a tone that continued in a letter sent to guests at her carol concert, which called for “love, not fear”.

The Prince and Princess of Wales are already in Sandringham in Norfolk for Christmas and have therefore missed the traditional pre-Christmas royal gathering at Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

It was revealed on Wednesday that The Duke and Duchess of York did not want to attend the lunch for the extended royal family, in the wake of the row over the duke’s contacts with an alleged Chinese spy.

This year’s Christmas card from Prince William and Catherine follows in their style with informal and relaxed family photos, without any traditional royal imagery.

Last year they were seen in one quite arty black and white imagethat shows them together as a family, but also with a style that owed something to an exclusive jeans advertisement.

This year’s card from King Charles and Queen Camilla shows them in a cheerful outdoor shot, taken shortly after the king had heard that he would be well enough to return to his public duties.

Prince Harry and Meghan’s “Happy Holiday Season” the card this year included an appearance by the couple’s two children.