Chaos Attraction

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby

2019-12-23, 3:23 p.m.

Happy Festivus! I just don't think I'm gonna get the writeup done for last night's party today before 9 CA time, and I gotta leave to drive to Mom's soon, so....Netflix review, anyone?

Quick! I need to stockpile some ridiculous Christmas movie reviews for days I’m too busy to write and I don’t have cable! Whatever shall I do?... Oh, wait, there’s a third Christmas Prince movie? ALLRIGHTY THEN!

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby starts out with “The Story So Far,” in case you forgot about this nuttery. Blogger girl sneaks into palace, befriends princess, turns out prince is adopted, his cousin tries to steal the throne, the girl marries the prince, blah de blah.

Amber is still blogging, somehow. Poor Meghan Markle must be so jealous that Queen Amber’s somehow still “allowed” to blog as a royal. Well, I guess if you’re the Queen you can do what you want?

I love how fake the honeymoon scene looks, albeit for five seconds. And how the royal couple suddenly became financial experts. And that royals can ride their bikes down the street with no bodyguards. Is Aldovia the chillest place ever?

LOOK A BABY BUMP REVEAL! OMG OMG I NEVER SAW A PREGNANT ROYAL BEFORE!!1111!!1 just saying.

Press conference time!
“Have you chosen the baby’s name?” “NO!” But a girl can inherit these days, even though we didn’t check on the sex. The kid’s due date is January 11, so....Capricorn. But I’m guessing the kid will be born a few weeks earlier. Like oh, the 24th or so? Call it a hunch.

Everyone royal continues to nag about the name inside the palace too. I like Princess Emily’s suggestions of “Khaleesi” and “Hermione.” Simon’s suggestions of “Simon” or “Simone” do not go over as well. “Not nearly as unsettling as your continued presence,” says Emily. Emily is still the best character in this series. Geez, now it’s a series.

Oh, Simon is now dating Amber’s friend Melissa, who’s here for the holidays. Was this going on in the second movie? I forget. But we’re told that Simon’s been good all year! He’s not on the naughty list any more!

Watch Amber and Richard hang out doing baby stuff. Amber reads a book called “My Perfect Birth Plan,” which makes me LOL because I don’t think life works like that. “Classical music makes everybody smarter,” says the prince with no science degree.

Rudy is having issues getting a flight out. “Now why couldn’t you marry the king of some tropical paradise?” he asks. GOOD QUESTION! If I ever marry royalty, he’d better rule a tropical island, I say.

A pregnant Amber somehow can sit out on the balcony and eat a box o’ donuts. Not that I’ve ever been pregnant, but (a) wouldn’t you be nervous about sitting on the edge of something that’s at least one floor up, and (b) I swear it’s like you can’t see her baby bump in this shot.

Amber wants the baby to have as normal a life as possible. I DON’T THINK THAT IS GOING TO GO DOWN, SOMEHOW. Oh brother. “We’ll find a new definition of normal together,” Richard says. No boarding school or subway rides. Compromise, it makes a relationship work!

The big plotline of this is signing some important centennial truce treaty with the neighboring Penglians from 600 years ago, which they resolved conveniently for the holidays in 1519. Good for them, I say. They renew it every 100 years. It’s also a work of art that gets passed back and forth like a 100 year baton. But will Queen Amber be allowed to sign it? It’s up to the Penglians, who are “quite traditional,” including Queen Ming, who makes Mrs. Averill come off as “carefree.” Mrs. Averill claims to have had a carefree moment “last Sunday,” incidentally. I bet it involved alcohol.

December 21: The caption says “tires treading water,” but I just see snow and not water and a lot of cop cars? I’m confused. The Penglian royals arrive. Amber says “Welcome to Aldovia!” and the audience gasps in HORROR! Oh, come on, people. The king warms up a bit. I do like Amber’s crazy giant flower on her head. Lynn is the attache, who Simon uh...knows....that’s awkward?

King Tai admires their giant acorn ornament.

Lynn and Simon were classmates at Oxford, and by that I guess it means “drinking buddies.” Melissa looks suspicious.

Marrying outside of royal classes is now fashionable, says Queen Ming. I feel like looking for the statistics I saw a while back about how there’s so few royals left to intermarry, and then there’s inbreeding, so that marrying commoners is really what you have to do these days.

“Cousin to the king, but you know me, working all angles,” is Simon’s “position” here.

Amber brings up that the two queens should sign the treaty. Queen Ming is startled.

There’s a dramatic announcement of the entrance of the designers, Sahil from the last movie and his business partner Andrew. They’ve rebranded and expanded, and offering free “elevation” services because the ancient fancy treaty is “a bit tacky.” Even Amber is all “It’s a priceless work of art!”

Isn’t it a bit tacky for a queen to have a baby shower? Like...they should be able to afford gifts?

“Richard mimics the whoosh of a flying plane,” says the captions.

December 22: Everyone’s now snowed in for the holidays! Queen Ming wants to be back for her kids (which is fair). Very few people could travel to watch this event. The Penglians won’t let a queen sign. Sigh. I like Amber’s dress, but it doesn’t quite seem appropriate to treaty signing or being knocked up? Lacy top and boobies?

Ta da! The treaty is GONE!

Reactions from the commoners in the room:
“If we don’t sort this out we’ll all end up in the dungeon!” says Mrs. Averill.
“Perhaps now it can be replaced with something more palatable,” says Sahil.
“It was there last night, said Mr. Little. Sir, that is totally what happens to the important documents we try to store at my job. Every effing day I am all “I swear it was there last I checked, why is it gone now? Did evil fairies take it?”

Simon is asked for help...to occupy the guests while they look for the treaty. Lynn’s easy to entertain, says Simon, but what about the rest? Emily is on babysitting Simon duty. Simon gets an idea...a board game. A Christmas one. “You want us to play a children’s game in the midst of a scandal?” says Queen Ming. “Top of the tree” is the name of the game. Okay, that’s adorable. Decorate your side of the tree first, get the star on first, ornaments are given for winning royal trivia questions. I want this game. King Tai loves this. Melissa bows out, Emily joins King Tai, the queen gets on the phone with the kids, leaving Lynn and Simon together.

Amber is psyched to do investigative journalism 101. “Sahil called it tacky, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

The tree game breaks up in five minutes when Melissa gets fed up and leaves. Everyone wanders out, leaving Emily alone with Mr. Little, who gives her the star and she wins. That is a huge star.

Simon’s priority is Melissa, so good for him. Amber is all “you’re leaving the Penglians alone?” “We talk for hours every night,” says Melissa, as well as he’s “really misunderstood.” “He’s more than just a bad boy,” he cares about me. We’re worried about his intentions, and Lynn, Amber says. We’re in love, Melissa says.

If the treaty isn’t signed on the 24th, we technically go back to war. “Which should be interesting since neither country has a standing army,” points out Emily. I love her. The dowager queen looks in some book and it says that if there comes a day that the sacred truce is broken, the country that broke it shall have “upon the firstborn a beshrew.” A what now? Oh, a curse. “That’s Amber and Richard’s baby,” Emily says, and what if it’s not nonsense?

“I may be expecting and queen, but I”m still a journalist.” says Amber.

Sahil’s designing is interrupted by Richard, who asks about the nursery. And by which I mean, distraction so that Amber can ransack his room. The music is trying to blend “thumpety thump thump, thumpety thump thump, look at Frosty go” music with scared stressful moments as Amber is walked in on by Andrew. He is unfazed. He also suggests that she write a puff piece on their multi million dollar business. Anyway, while that went on, Sahil is cleared, I guess. Emily walks in and tells them about the curse. Amber of course freaks.

At the airport, Rudy is snowed in. Everything is awful at the palace: Melissa loves Simon, the baby shower is canceled, everyone’s snowed in and the baby will be cursed. Everything sucks and it’s only the 22nd! Dad encourages them to have the shower anyway.

Amber hits the history book and finds out there’s a bunch of drama in the past involving Prince Claude and Prince Jun fighting over Claude’s wife. Damn. Prince Claude was poisoned soon after, “everyone” thinks Jun did it, Claude’s family (the House of Devon) swore vengeance and went downhill from there.

Blabhlah baby stuff, the Penglian royals wanana go home...but what if the Aldovians wanted this on purpose to renegotiate terms, Lynn suggests. What? Amber invites them to the shower with a formal paper invite for the day OF the party.

I’m just gonna say that this baby shower looks like something outta Crazy Rich Asians. It is far fancier than like, anything else in this series including weddings so far. There’s water, crowns on the cupcakes, and...guessing baby pictures, which is incidentally the lone game we’re going to play at my office next week. The queen made Amber something or other in a day? King Tai sings and plays piano as his gift, “Hark The Herald Angels Sing.”

I guess the issue is that Queen Ming feels like she needs to be all retiring and out of the spotlight, even though her husband is fine with her doing whatever she wants.

“Happy wife, happy life,” says King Tai.

Lynn asks for news on the treaty. We’re bringing in a cop dog!

Seriously, the kings are going to try to assemble a crib themselves. “We each rule a kingdom, this can’t be beyond us.” LOL.

More History Time With Emily: 200 years ago, someone stole the treaty, was caught, and thrown in the dungeon. Mr. Little claims that the ghost of the thief is still in there.

Simon suspects Lynn, Melissa suspects Simon.

Tai is fine with the idea of Meng/queens in general signing the treaty, but she’s afraid of what people will think.

The guys finish the crib, put a piece on backwards, and then it breaks.

Melissa sees Simon oogling over Lynn’s shoulder and saying ominous shit about what’s coming to them. He dramatically chucks a piece of paper onto the floor for Melissa to find. Melissa confronts Simon, who admits he dated Lynn 2 or 3 times before becoming friends. Melissa is all, “Amber was right about you.” She runs to Richard and Amber to accuse Simon and Lynn, and notes that what she found was “private financial information.” If the treaty is broken, Aldovia is screwed financially, basically! They tell Melissa about the curse offstage.

Simon practices his apology: “You don’t understand how things work in a palace...too arrogant.” Melissa walks in. He hugs her. She is stony.

December 24: Let’s kill some time while the dog sniffs around the palace! Let’s go to the Christmas market! Again, royalty mingles with the crowds and are totally fine with no bodyguards whatsoever. “The people adore their Queen Amber,” says Queen Ming. Oh lord.

Amber wants to go skating, but, y’know, pregnant. Amber and Emily get to skate by sitting in chairs while getting pushed around. “Sometimes it’s very useful to be king,” or princess in Emily’s case. Is Emily getting a boyfriend? Yes, yes she is. (The guy from the last movie? I forget.) Queen Ming isn’t into skating, but she loves her some archery and will challenge anyone to it! They get Amber on this because “I’ve seen her stop an embezzler with her bow,” says her mother-in-law. After it’s announced that the dog found nothing, Amber still manages to hit a bulleye before fainting.

The Penglians want to leave now that the airport is clear. And of course Amber is going into labor tonight. And of course the doctor has a car accident in the snow, which Richard rescues her from ON HORSEBACK. Queen Ming “used to volunteer at a maternity ward” and will assist Amber! She asks for hot water, a heating pad and a paint roller, the latter of which utterly stumps Mr. Zavala for a few seconds until Satil says, “I possess such an item.” “May I ask why?” says Andrew. “No, you may not, Andrew.” Uh.....what’s so dirty about a paint roller? Simon, meanwhile, hands Amber some...stress rubber ducks to squeeze.

Amber should be fairly well distracted, but she does tell Emily to go check the dungeon after Emily goes on about it being haunted again. Emily and Helena go down there, get locked in, find a “Leopold Was Here” bit, and eventually find the treaty down there. Helena picks the lock to get out.

Oh, just so you know, they can’t call contractions “contractions” in this movie for some reason, it’s “surges.” Why?

“We found the treaty! In the dungeon!” Amber, despite supposedly being in labor, finds time to go all Clue and figure out that the guilty party is Mr. Little because he’s descended from Claude. He kept the dog out of the dungeon, made up a story to tell Emily, and was the last one to lock up the treaty. Mr. Little is all, I swore an oath and fulfilled my duty, but I didn’t know about that baby curse thing!

Lynn and Simon were working on economic amendments! That was all! Really! Oh, and she helped him shop for a ring to give Melissa. “You could have done worse,” says Emily. Richard offers Simon a dukedom.

SIGN THE TREATY, Y’ALL, YA GOT FIVE MINUTES. OH, NOW YOU WANT QUEENS TO SIGN? “Tense instrumentals,” say the captions. It’s done, Amber gives birth to a girl, and names her “Elleri” (??) after her dead mother. The queens thank each other and Ming gives Amber the necklace off her neck.

At the baby announcement, there’s a redheaded extra who’s trying to get in camera.

We end with one more royal blog, and some cheesy pics, including King Richard sitting in the crib, Mr. Zavala and Mrs. Averill drinking, Sahil getting attacked by a rubber duck, and Mr. Little in his new orange prison duds.

Okay, I was mildly amused, as I ever am, which is all these movies are ever hoping for, really. Also, here’s more thoughts than you were going to have about the Aldovian map and Everything Wrong With The Entire 'A Christmas Prince' Movie Trilogy.
Oh, just found this: You Can Thank This Forgotten 19th Century Novel For the Christmas Prince Movie Genre.


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