25 days of Christmas: The Royal Baby

Amber had yet another eventful year, this time as queen. The kingdom is thriving, mostly because of Richard's modernization initiative, and all is well. Amber is now expecting a child, and much like in the previous movie, she's still striving to take a more active role in the kingdom's policies, a contrast to her husband, who wishes her to take it easy and focus on the baby for a while. There is only one official function before Christmas: the signing of a treaty with the leaders of Aldovia's greatest ally: Penglia.

Long ago, on Christmas Eve, 1419 Prince Claude of Aldovia and Prince Jun of Penglia signed a treaty that ended a long drawn out war between both countries. The treaty has been renewed every hundred years since that first time. This year, in keeping with the modernizing tendencies of Aldovia, Amber will be the first queen to sign. If they can convince the queen of Penglia, that is. The treaty is so important that according to legend a curse will fall on the firstborn of the monarch who breaks the treaty...

The problem begins when the treaty, a precious scroll, hundreds of years old is stolen! Much of the movie is the hunt for the stolen scroll, under the pressure of a curse and the possible start of a long-forgotten war. All while Simon tries to regain his family's trust and Amber tries to connect to the Queen of Penglia, a much more traditional queen than herself. Her gift to Amber at the end was truly sensitive and beautiful. 

I enjoyed this movie, but not quite so much as I did the previous two installments in the series. It's been fun watching these characters evolve over the years (though I can't believe Amber is still keeping up with her blog, as a queen!), and I really hope they make a couple more movies in the future... Also, the first seeds of a Christmas Royalty cinematic Universe were here, when the queen of Penglia mentions Belgravia (from A Princess Switch) as another kingdom where the prince married a commoner from a foreign country recently. Pretty nice reference

Aldovia. And a new country is introduced: Penglia. Supposedly a nearby country, since it is Aldovia's closest ally.

King Richard II

Queen (definitely a step up from blogger) 

 

Probably the time they went to the Christmas fair and Emily's boyfriend took her ice skating, sliding a chair ahead of himself and spinning her around, making her feel like a ballerina. It was filled with the spirit of Christmas 

Strangely enough, it was probably Simon's proposal, near the end! There wasn't much romance between Richard and Amber this time around

The decorations at the Christmas Market where they go ice skating...

 

 They play a game in the castle called "top of the tree". It's supposed to be a traditional Aldovian Christmas game. You basically answer questions about Aldovian History and traditions and get to place ornaments on the tree. Whoever places the star at the top wins. It's super cool that they paid such close attention to little details of the worldbuilding like this. 

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby | USA | 2019 | Direction: John Schultz | Screenplay: Nate atkins | Cast: Rose McIver, Ben Lamb, Alice Krige