Dfter a complicated year, the Queen hopes to spend a Christmas as it should be, made up of all the traditions that are most dear to her: the personally decorated tree, the greeting cards sent to the four corners of the world, the family reunion in Sandrigham, the Christmas pudding that concludes the lunch on December 25th. Even if it is a royal family, basically these are habits that can be found in everyone’s homes. All but one: the endless games of Monopoly. In fact, among the many rules that British royals must comply with, there is the bizarre ban on finding themselves in front of the most famous billboard in the world, competing for real estate properties, navigating between property taxes, unexpected events, stays in prison and low blows of the opponents.
It was the royal family themselves who revealed this curiosity in a video on the official Youtube channel. It seems that the reason for the ban is to be found in the excessive fury that Monopoly provokes among blue-blooded players. So the Queen was forced to ban him during family gatherings, precisely to avoid the heated discussions that it was evidently capable of arousing. None of Elizabeth’s descendants, therefore, can aim to conquer Park Lane and Mayfair, the most luxurious properties on the board which, in the English version, correspond to our Viale dei Giardini and Parco della Vittoria.
And this is not a recent ban, perhaps arrived to stop the excesses of the young William and Harry. As early as December 2008, Andrea, Duke of York, took part in the inauguration of the central offices of an important real estate company in Leeds; in memory of the occasion, they gave him the game as a gift but Andrea was forced not to take it: «In the family we are not allowed to play it. It can make you really bad. ‘ Who knows what Charles Darrow would think, the unemployed engineer who invented the game in 1933 in Philadelphia in which the goal, in the middle of the Great Depression, was to get rich as much as possible and defeat the opponents. Since then, more than 350 million boxes have been sold worldwide, none of which have ended up in Buckingham Palace.
Even without Monopoly, the Queen’s Christmas holidays will be full of tradition: unlike last year when, due to the pandemic, the royals spent Christmas separately, this year Elizabeth would like to return to Sandringham House, the country mansion in Norfolk, where everyone except Harry and Meghan are expected. On Christmas Eve, the gifts are unwrapped under the tree on which the Queen herself loves to hang the decorations together with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (in his Christmas speech in 2015 he described this moment as one of the greatest joys of longevity). On December 25, participation in the religious celebration in the church and traditional lunch which ends with the Christmas pudding accompanied by a brandy sauce. Even without Monopoly, it seems that there are all the ingredients for a peaceful Christmas, just as Queen Elizabeth would like it.
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