It\u2019s difficult, obviously, to verify whether or not princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have actually woken up with severed horse heads in their respective beds, but it\u2019s clear nonetheless that the Firm has made them both an offer they can\u2019t refuse. Like Brando\u2019s Don Corleone, lightly slapping Johnny Fontane around the chops in The Godfather, Beatrice and Eugenie have allegedly been told by Royal HQ, \u201cCome to Sandringham and celebrate Christmas with the family. But leave those deadbeat parents behind. Capeesh?\u201d <\/p>\n
It is, of course, exactly like something from a mobster movie, and certainly a supreme test of loyalty for the princesses who, according to an \u201cinsider\u201d who blabbed to the Mail on Sunday, are completely stressed by this \u201ctug-of-love\u201d dilemma. Like Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III, just when they thought they were out, they get pulled back in (I can do this all day). <\/p>\n
They have to choose, ultimately, between family and \u201cFamily\u201d. The first option involves Christmas with disgraced parents Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, who are both toxic with the stink of former BFF, handy cash-cow and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The pair will allegedly spend one final yuletide season in Andrew\u2019s 30-room Royal Lodge mansion before he is shipped off to a \u201crun-down farm\u201d on the Sandringham estate that is reportedly being prepared for his arrival (lots of pizza ovens, but no antiperspirants required). At Royal Lodge this Christmas, however, and worryingly, according to biographer Andrew Lownie, Sarah and Andrew are planning to, \u201cdo all sorts of entertaining\u201d. Ewwwww. That \u201call sorts\u201d is not particularly helpful in context. Fingers crossed they\u2019ll stop at Twister and a few rounds of the Traitors card game. <\/p>\n
\u2022 What\u2019s really happening with Andrew, Fergie and Royal Lodge<\/a><\/p>\n The alternative option for the princesses is a respectful observance of tradition and duty. It\u2019s an ennobling piece of Royal PR that involves a significant celebration of an uncle whose work ethic is impeccable and whose dignified battle with cancer is inspiring, and with a female cousin who has quietly emulated those same traits, before and away from the media glare. And so, remind me, this is a dilemma how?<\/p>\n And yes, of course, no one said that Christmas at Sandringham was supposed to be a riotous reboot of It\u2019s a Royal Knockout. Although if Prince Edward\u2019s around, and enough gin martinis (the King\u2019s favourite tipple) have been quaffed, it\u2019s not hard to imagine a dusty cupboard raided, followed by the emergence of several pantomime horses, some wacky knights outfits and a still keen Nicholas Lyndhurst and Toyah Willcox (both original contestants). <\/p>\n Elsewhere, specifically in the Oscar-nominated Lady Di biopic Spencer, Christmas in Sandringham has been depicted as aristocratic torture trauma designed to humiliate emotionally complex individuals who balk at the annual weigh-in. Here guests are weighed, on arrival and departure, nodding to an Edwardian ritual proving that satisfactory meals have been consumed and an extra 3lb, roughly, added. Spencer, though, was a ridiculous psychodrama that painted Sandringham as a site of gothic horror and was filmed almost entirely in Germany. Nuff said. <\/p>\n