According to British media reports on Monday, Queen Elizabeth II has decided to break with tradition and celebrate Christmas in Windsor Castle rather than her Sandringham estate.
According to AFP, the decision comes as the United Kingdom grapples with an increase in the number of cases of the Omicron coronavirus, as well as the possibility of new limitations.
The decision "was a personal one taken after considerable consideration," according to an unnamed royal source quoted by Britain's domestic Press Association news agency.
The 95-year-old monarch will spend Christmas with his family at the historic castle west of London, and "reasonable measures and all appropriate requirements will be observed," according to the statement.
After an overnight hospital stay in October that prompted doctors to advise her to rest, the Queen has been obliged to reduce her official activities.
Because of the risk of the virus spreading, she cancelled her annual pre-Christmas family lunch last week for the second year in a row.
Last year, strict rules on household mixing indoors and social distancing were in place, preventing her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well as cousins from meeting.
The Queen and senior members of the royal family customarily spend Christmas in Sandringham, in eastern England, with the Queen and senior members of the royal family attending church on the estate on Christmas Day.
This is the monarch's first Christmas since her 73-year-old husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, died in April.
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, rejected requests from scientists on Monday to enforce stricter social mixing restrictions ahead of the holiday season, which begins this weekend.
Johnson, on the other hand, said the government was keeping the situation "under constant scrutiny" as the number of positive tests hit a new high of 100,000 per day, with the Omicron mutation accounting for an increasing number of them.