Many of Kate Middleton’s Christmas Day Conversations Were About Cancer: ‘You Get a Camaraderie with Other Cancer Victims’

“Unless you’ve been on that journey you can’t understand what it’s like,” said Karen Maclean, who has had cancer for 20 years and gave Kate a powerful hug

Rachel Burchfield serves as digital editor, royals at PEOPLE. She has worked at PEOPLE since August 2024, and her work has previously appeared in Marie Claire, Vanity Fair, and Vogue.

Published on December 26, 2024 02:17PM EST

Kate Middleton took part in many meaningful conversations during the traditional Christmas Day walkabout at Sandringham — and many of them centered around cancer.

The Princess of Wales, 42, was herself diagnosed with cancer earlier this year following major abdominal surgery in January. She announced her diagnosis in a video message on March 22 — and on Sept. 9 shared that she had completed chemotherapy treatment.

The Telegraph reported that Princess Kate “appeared to give special attention to the well-wishers at Sandringham who came with their own stories of surviving cancer.” Alongside the rest of the royal family, Kate chatted with many well-wishers as she departed a Dec. 25 morning church service St. Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham estate, where Kate, her husband Prince William and their kids Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, celebrated Christmas.

Wearing a forest green Alexander McQueen coat and matching fascinator, Kate met two sisters, Nicola Halligan and Laura Mather, whose grandmother died of cancer earlier this year. The sisters, The Telegraph reported, had never been to Sandringham to meet the royal family but felt the need to come this year: “We’ve come down because my Nan was a massive royal fan and she passed away in May, so we thought it would be nice to be here,” Mather said.

“They’re a normal family, exactly the same as the rest of us,” Halligan added. “It can happen to anyone at any time. Look at the way she keeps going and the way she’s so positive. She’s a leading example to people in this country, and we’re lucky to have her as the next queen.”

Kate wrapped Karen Maclean — who has experienced “20 years of cancer” — in a hug on Dec. 25.

“We just had a little talk about cancer, really,” Maclean said, adding it was a “privilege” to hug the Princess of Wales, and that both Kate and King Charles (who also received a cancer diagnosis earlier this year) seemed “very well actually, considering what they’re going through.”

Maclean told The Sun, “We were talking about our illnesses, because we’re both cancer victims, when she reached out and hugged me. It was really unexpected and such a joy … I gave her a tight squeeze back.”

“It was such a surreal moment. I wasn’t expecting that at all. It was so overwhelmingly good,” she added. “You get a camaraderie with other cancer victims. Unless you’ve been on that journey you can’t understand what it’s like.”

According to Newsweek, Kate spoke to a woman on the walkabout who had worked for the U.K. charity Macmillan Cancer Support, who said, “I just wanted to say you are an inspiration to all the patients.” 

To this, Kate replied, “The amount of people who have written this year is extraordinary, and I think cancer just really does resonate with so many families. People like you are doing all the hard work out there. I’m hugely grateful.”

Louis Beauchamp — who previously met Kate ahead of King Charles’ coronation in May 2023 — traveled all the way from France to greet Kate at Sandringham, and told PEOPLE, “She was as genuine and close to people as I remembered. She seemed so happy to be with us again. You could tell she was truly touched.”

Kate was so caught up in conversation with these well-wishers and others that she fell behind the rest of her family, who were farther ahead of her on the path back to Sandringham House and the Christmas lunch that awaited them there.

“I seem to have lost my family!” Kate quipped as she noticed how far ahead the others were.

Much like Kate’s conversations at the Christmas Day walkabout, King Charles’ annual Christmas broadcast also touched on matters of health, recording the Christmas message at Fitzrovia Chapel, the former chapel of Middlesex Hospital in London — the first time the Christmas broadcast was filmed outside of a royal residence in 18 years.

“From a personal point of view, I offer special, heartfelt thanks to the selfless doctors and nurses who this year have supported me and other members of my family through the uncertainties and anxieties of illness, and have helped provide the strength, care and comfort we have needed,” the King, 76, said in his message. “I am deeply grateful, too, to all those who have offered us their own kind words of sympathy and encouragement.”

He added, “All of us go through some form of suffering at some stage in our life, be it mental or physical,” he said. “The degree to which we help one another — and draw support from each other, be we people of faith or of none — is a measure of our civilization as nations. This is what continually impresses me, as my family and I meet with, and listen to, those who dedicate their lives to helping others.”

While Kate announced on Sept. 9 she had completed chemotherapy treatment, the King’s treatment will continue into 2025, the palace announced on Dec. 20.

Last month, Prince William said that 2024 has been “the hardest year in my life,” adding, “It’s been dreadful.”

“I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done. But from a personal family point of view, it’s been brutal,” the Prince of Wales said in November.

As 2025 dawns, royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith told PEOPLE of Kate, “She will probably continue to be strategic about how often she appears in public, and people shouldn’t hold it against her if she is doing less next year. The important thing is she will be pacing herself. She will do what she’s able to do and pursue things she feels passionate about.”

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Fellow royal biographer Robert Hardman told PEOPLE, “We are being encouraged not to look at this as a chapter that’s over and then it’s back to normal, because cancer doesn’t work like that. The details remain private, but there’s no sense of trying to gloss over the reality that it’s an unpredictable disease.”