It’s not Prince William, and it’s not his father, Prince Charles, and it is certainly not Prince Philip nor Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Nope.

Now, we know that the pants in the family are being worn by Kate Middleton and her fetus, of a name and gender as yet undetermined.

But who’s wearing the giant diaper?

HINT: It’s not that itsy-bitsy blip visible only on ultrasound (we are told).

No.  The giant diaper is being worn by Michael Middleton, Kate’s father, who entertains his family and friends this way on Christmases.

And you thought that Prince Charles was dotty for talking to his plants and then eating only vegetables!

Here is how we know that Michael Middleton, accomplished air steward and party-package-packer, dresses up for Christmas not as Santa Clause, but as a Japanese Sumo wrestler.  Why, Pippa, his daughter, has written an article in Spectator Magazine letting us know all about it.  And in return, admiring pundits are now writing that Michael’s daughter, Kate, and her royal husband, Prince William, have declined to attend the Queen’s traditional annual Christmas retreat at her royal estate, Sandringham, where there is a black-tie dinner and a pheasant shoot, in addition to a traditional church service and many other festivities.

But nobody wears a giant Sumo diaper.

Not openly, anyway.

"Christmas at Sandringham can be very busy and stressful with everyone arriving,” British papers claim a “source” has told them.  “There is always lots going on, big dinners and lots of outfit changes to contend with," the source says.  Instead, “Carole (Middleton, Kate’s mother) is very keen for Kate to spend Christmas with the family” at their home in Bucklebury.

And by “the family,” the source means the Middletons–not “the Royal Family.”

Ah.

At least, there will not be so much changing of clothing involved in a Middleton family Christmas in Bucklebury.  Everyone can just wear giant Sumo diapers!

Carve that turkey and crank up the thermostat!

Uncle Gary can then chop up the cocaine and pass around the hookers.

Just a few weeks ago, British tabloids had breathlessly speculated that Queen Elizabeth II would invite Kate Middleton’s parents, Carole and Michael, and perhaps also her colorful siblings, Pippa and James, to spend Christmas with the Royal Family at the Queen’s palace at Sandringham.  And because the Queen’s Christmases as said to be a “royals only” and “royal family” event, American blogs echoed that Buckingham Palace was preparing itself for this “great break with tradition” along the lines of Mayan-era-ending cataclysms.

Maybe the Middletons told the Queen that they would only come if they could all wear giant Sumo diapers.

Or maybe the Queen decided that what happens in Bucklebury should stay in Bucklebury.

But just as the sun or the moon or some meteor or errant planet did not smash into the Earth and stop all time and space, the Middletons apparently did not receive their invitation to the Queen’s Sandringham soiree.

But does it signal anything?

It might.

It might signal that the Royal Family doesn’t like to play the Middletons’ diaper dress-up games.  Or it might signal the beginning of Prince William no longer being taken seriously.

Will he come to the end of his days weeping and murmuring, “I coulda been a contender?”

Since his mother’s shocking 1997 death in a Paris car crash after her shocking 1996 divorce from Prince Charles, everyone, including the British Royal Family, has given Prince William a great deal of slack in working out his own life.  However, it is not always clear whether doing so has always pushed him in the right direction, if one considers him to be the future of the English monarchy.  Indeed, William may not be that future.  Right now, he is an heir of the heir apparent, whose line appears set to inherit the throne from the long-lived and loyal Elizabeth.

But William has done little to distinguish himself, and his spouse’s accomplishments, apart from sprouting an impressively long mane of brown hair, are nil.  And William’s marriage to his long-time paramour has been darkly shadowed recently.

First, while everyone welcomes William and Kate’s recent pregnancy announcement, their own coy remarks about hoping for “two children” and the implication that they expect twins leads to speculation that they have availed themselves of in vitro pregnancy “help.”  While taking an ovulation-inducing drug raises fewer concerns about royal “bloodlines,” an in vitro pregnancy invites deeper scrutiny.  Whose egg?  Whose sperm?  How would we know for sure whose is whose?  Did the royal couple engage in sex-selection?

And then, there is the matter of psychological maturity.

Even prior to the pregnancy, Prince William’s angry and vituperative response to paparazzi snapping photos of Kate topless and bottomless while both of them frolicked in the South of France on an open balcony seemed puzzling.  Reports abounded that William was insisting that French authorities arrest the daring photographers, and he also filed lawsuits to cut off the freedom of the press in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to publish these photos.

Are these the actions of a measured future monarch?

While William’s father, Prince Charles, has been known to raise the hackles of the gentry by complaining about modern architectural buildings he dislikes, most British Royals who are serious contenders for the throne tend to tow the line when it comes to irritating commoners, or pay the consequences.

William’s ancestor Charles I, the last British monarch to assert that his royal person and persona were to be regarded as inviolable ended up beheaded in 1649.  Parliament generously permitted the severed head to be sewn back onto Charles’s neck so that his remaining “royal” family could bury him intact.  And William’s great uncle David, King Edward VIII who abdicated and then became the Duke of Windsor, was booted to the Bahamas and then to permanent exile on the smokes, pugs, and cocktails party circuit.

Also overshadowing Britain’s “great joy” at the news that there is a royal fetus presently gestating in Kate’s uterus is the apparent suicide of the hospital nurse who allegedly killed herself in despair over a prank telephone call made to the nurse’s station when Kate Middleton was admitted to hospital, reportedly for extreme morning sickness.

It’s not a propitious omen, and the delays in investigating the nurse’s unexplained death raise questions that will undoubtedly raise more questions.

And then, there is the matter of how the Royal Family will deal with a set of aggressive, avaricious commoner in-laws who are remarkably akin to Honey Boo Boo once their surface is lightly scraped.

Instead of another Royal Family boring old Sandringham Christmas, Pippa Middleton now merrily informs us that at her family’s Bucklebury home, Christmas is fun.

But what sounds so fun about it?  It sounds, in fact, rather dour and odd.  First, Pippa says, “The Middletons’ Christmas should be blissfully calm. We’re good at keeping each other’s spirits up.”

Huh?  Why?  What’s wrong?  Why do the Middletons need to bolster each other’s spirits?  Do they not drink egg nog?  Did they not get their year-end statements in to the tax accountant for their party planning business?  Did Uncle Gary get tape-recorded or photographed with cocaine and hookers?  Is Pippa’s party-planning book not selling well?

 Did Kate's curling iron shot-circuit?  Did Carole break a nail?

And then there’s that giant diaper.  While brother James Middleton reportedly enjoys cross-dressing in Kate’s outfits when he is not photographing himself naked or simulating sex acts with men, Pippa now reveals that their father, Michael, likes to play dress-up over the

holidays: “He buys a new costume each year, and typically gets a bit carried away.  A couple of Christmases ago, he appeared in an inflatable Sumo outfit.”

Huh?  Why?  What’s wrong?

By “Sumo outfit,” one can only suppose that the “costume” Michael Middleton wore was a large diaper, since that is the only article of clothing that Sumo wrestlers wear, once they have discarded their kimonos at the start of their match.  As for it being "inflatable,"the mind shudders to think.

Am I the only person who is paying attention here?

One usually dresses up like Santa for Christmas, and if Santa is wearing a diaper of any kind, the children are to remain blissfully unaware of it.

Believe me, I am all for pregnant women being allowed to stay home, put their feet up, and eat pie all day long, especially on Christmas.

And if Kate chooses to do this at Bucklebury rather than Sandringham, it seems like a fine idea.

And I guess that some men enjoy wearing women’s clothes or no clothes, as much as their fathers may enjoy wearing giant diapers and keeping their families entertained thereby.

And on Christmas Day, let the village bells ring out all over England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

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But I do believe that I have just heard a bell being rung for the beginning of the end of the monarchy as we know it.