PLAYING games is a surefire way to have fun with friends while seeing in the New Year.
And even the Queen likes to get involved in such festivities, with her favourite activity for New Year’s Eve a game called Lucky Dip.
According to author Brian Hoey, who wrote the book At Home with The Queen, Her Majesty is given a tub of sawdust by a footman – with pieces of folded paper hidden inside.
On each piece of paper is a message or prediction for the year ahead, with the Queen and her guests taking it in turns to pick a piece of paper out of the tub and read its contents aloud.
“Each member of the Royal Family takes a lucky dip and if their particular forecast is not very favourable the poor footman gets the blame,” Brian writes in his book.
While it’s unclear exactly who will be joining the Queen to see in 2022, she welcomed son Prince Charles and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall on Christmas Day.
A source previously told the Daily Star that the Queen and her late husband, Prince Philip, approved the messages on the pieces of paper – traditionally written by a member of the royal household – before the game was played.
“Each member of the family picks out an envelope and reads out their prediction to the rest of the room,” the insider explained.
“They’re meant to be funny but like all the family’s humour there’s an element of score settling and getting even to them.”
It’s been a very difficult year for Queen Elizabeth, with Prince Philip passing away in April and the Covid-19 pandemic, but she can look forward to a monumental year in 2022.
She will be celebrating an incredible 70 years as England’s monarch, with a four-day bank holiday among the ways the British public will be celebrating the occasion.
Read our New Year live blog to follow all the latest action
In other royal news, Kate Middleton is expected to have a deliberately low key party to celebrate her 40th birthday in January.
Prince Harry feels “restless”, according to Princess Diana’s astrologer.
And how Kate, Wills and the rest of the royal family spend their New Year’s Eves.
