Prince William and Kate Middleton "Are Looking Forward to Starting Fresh" After Christmas, Source Says

Christmas is almost here and the royals are more than ready for it.

"The Cambridges are spending Christmas with the Queen at Sandringham," a source reminds us, speaking to Us Weekly. "It’s going to be a big family affair. George, Charlotte and Louis are absolutely delighted to be seeing their great-grandmother in person again."

Apparently, the little Cambridges are being super adorable and have "spent hours picking out their own festive gifts for [the queen], and Charlotte and George made her paintings of The Christmas Story in art class at school."

But the little ones' parents are already thinking ahead to 2022 and how their royal duties will shift going forward. "[William and Kate] are looking forward to starting fresh in the New Year," the source says. "We’ll be seeing a transition of responsibility—they’re taking on additional charity work, attending more events and making appearances. There’s even a royal tour in the works, and of course they’re heavily involved in the Platinum Jubilee."

Back in September, royal expert Andrew Lownie said that the Cambridges were taking on more duties as the Queen scales back her own. "William and Kate, who seem to be very popular, are stepping into the position that Charles and Camilla had," Lownie told Express at the time. "Because they are, I would say almost more popular than Charles and Camilla, they’ve probably been given a higher role."

The very fact that the Cambridges are spending Christmas at Sandringham rather than with the Middletons points to them taking their growing responsibilities very seriously, as well. "In the early years of being a family, they did try to alternate Christmas, one year with The Queen and the Royal Family and the next year with the Middletons, but Kate and William put duty before self and we can see that, more now than ever," royal expert Katie Nicholl recently told OK!.