If this were a joke inside a Christmas cracker, rather than an article on a website, you might start it with the phrase “pull yourself together”.
But as it is the latter, rather than the former, we won’t!
Nevertheless, it is remarkable what can be made from an old pair of curtains, even more so if the unwanted drapes came from King Charles’ house in Sandringham.
Now, one of the King’s charities is using them to raise money to fund its work which helps more than 15,000 students each year.
The curtains, which once hung in one of the main entertaining rooms at Sandringham House in Norfolk, have been upcycled into 25 unique Christmas stockings, 24 of which are now up for auction.
They are each numbered, 1-25, making them one of a kind, and a piece of royal history.
The starting price, should a royal stocking be on your Christmas list this year, is £250. But they are likely to fetch a much higher price at the silent auction given where they have come from.
In fact, the curtains would have provided the backdrop to many a Royal Family Christmas Day.
The late Queen Elizabeth shifted the royal festive celebrations on 25 December to Sandringham in 1988 and they have been held there ever since.
The only person who will both own the stockings and remember the curtains in their orginal setting, will be the King himself, who is being gifted the final stocking, number 25.
The King’s Foundation, his charity which promotes nature, tradition and sustainability, will use the funds raids to continue its education programmes.
Based at Dumfries House in Ayshire, school pupils and older students, are trained in various skills from science and maths subjects, to milinary, cheffing, woodcraft and stonemasonry.
Every year more than 15,000 young people attend courses ranging from one day to one year. The skills, all rooted in nature and tradition, are taught with the ambition of creating future career opportunities.
It was a sewing bee at Dumfries House that recycled the material.
All the participants, who live in the area around the house, learn new skills, more sustainable ways of working, and their meetings make for an important social gathering for those who might otherwise spend long periods of the week alone.
Dumfries House was bought for the nation in 2007 when the King held raise the money needed to save it.
It now attracts more than 200,000 visitors per year, and is home to an important set of historic Chippendale furniture from the 1700s.
The estate and grounds are open to visitors, for free, all year round, in addition to the paid-for tours of the main house.
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Sarah McClymont, from The King’s Foundation’s Future Textiles initiative, said: “This was such an exciting project for the Sewing Bee to work on. Being given the opportunity to work with such historically significant fabric was a real honour for them and they are so proud of how the stockings turned out.
She added: “We hope that whoever is lucky enough to win one of the stockings at auction will pass it down as a family heirloom to be treasured for decades to come.”
The charity auction will run for the Twelve Days of Christmas from Monday 1 to Friday 12 December.
You might say, the curtains-now-stockings will ‘hang together’ very well on each of the 24 fireplaces in their new homes.
This is Talking Royals – our weekly podcast about the royal family, with ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship and Producer Lizzie Robinson…
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