FOOTBALL, PRESENTS AND DRY MARTINIS

CHRISTMAS EVE

TRADITIONALLY, the royal Family arrive at Sandringham on Christmas Eve, with the exception of the Queen who travelled by train from King’s Cross to King’s lynn on Thursday.

The fun starts on Christmas Eve at the annual football match for charity at Conservat i ve peer lord ( Greville) Howard’s estate, Castle rising, which is five minutes from Sandringham. Teams are made up of toffs and locals, and William and Harry usually play. Then it’s tea at Sandringham — Earl Grey with warm homemade scones.

The house might look like a prep school but it’s the cosiest of the royal palaces. Though big by anyone’s standards, the dining room can’t seat nearly as many as the Queen’s other houses. Hence numbers are limited to around 30.

There are displays of old guns, worn-down sofas, blankets in the bedrooms and a special box for rogue jigsaw pieces waiting to be reunited with their puzzles. Christmas Eve is the royal Family’s present-opening evening and there’s a family dinner. The Queen i nsists on this as she believes Christmas day is a religious festival.

But first, everybody helps to decorate t he 20ft norfolk spruce tree — Queen Victoria’s little glass angels have pride of place. William, Kate and George will come over f rom anmer to j oin i n the present-opening at 6pm in the red drawing room. Gifts are deliberately not flashy. The joke shop in Tetbury does a roaring trade thanks to William and Harry (one year, Harry gave the Queen a shower cap that read ‘ain’t life a bitch’; another, he received a ‘Grow your own Girlfriend’ kit from Kate). at 8.15, after cocktails — dry Martini, stirred, or Sandringham cider, a favourite of William and Harry.

There will be dinner then games until midnight, at which point the Queen will go to bed first. Then Prince Philip will serve liqueurs.