Princess Eugenie and Beatrice were “surprisingly” invited to several royal-family events around the holidays. They were welcomed at King Charles’s pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, and they turned up at Sandringham on the Christmas morning church-walk. At both events, Bea and Eugenie brought their husbands. I think they also brought some of their kids to the pre-Christmas lunch too. All of this was notable because Bea and Eugenie’s parents were banned from those events, following Sarah Ferguson and Andrew Windsor’s “unroyaling” and title-removal. The princesses chose not to spend the holidays with their parents at Royal Lodge, even though it was Andrew and Sarah’s last Christmas at the lodge. So what did Andrew and Sarah make of their daughters’ choice to cozy up to the king? They were fine with it, apparently.

Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie faced a difficult decision about where to spend Christmas amid the royal fallout surrounding their parents, the former Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

Princess Beatrice, 37, and Princess Eugenie, 35, joined King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William, Kate Middleton and more family members for church at Sandringham on Christmas morning. The sisters’ participation in the royal family’s most public holiday ritual visibly aligned them with the monarchy as their parents spent Christmas privately, 140 miles away at Royal Lodge in Windsor.

While Andrew, 65, and Ferguson, 66, were banished from the gathering amid fallout around renewed interest in his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a family friend says the former couple supported their daughters joining the royals on Christmas.

“They live and die by the monarchy, so this didn’t surprise me at all. And Andrew and Sarah would have 1,000 percent supported it,” the friend exclusively tells PEOPLE.

“Sarah has always said her greatest gift to the monarchy was her girls. She’s going to still hold her allegiance to the Crown,” they added about Ferguson.

Royal biographer Robert Jobson agrees that it was the right move for Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie to honor King Charles’ invitation on Christmas, showing loyalty amid the turmoil.

“They did the right thing – showing loyalty to King Charles and to the Crown. It’s easy to say this is a snub, but they would say, ‘I’m a royal princess, I’m in line to the throne, I have been invited to attend the King’s Christmas celebrations and you don’t turn down the King’s invitation,’ ” says Jobson, whose latest book, Windsor Legacy, was published on Jan. 6.

“If you have an invitation, you go. It’s not an invitation – it’s a command, really,” he says.

[From People]

Yeah, I don’t think it was a command, per se, but I believe Beatrice and Eugenie were probably surprised to receive those invitations, and they decided that showing up would probably be the smart move, to keep Charles on their side. And honestly, I think Bea and Eugenie have every right not to care what their parents think anymore. They actually need less feedback from Andrew and Sarah overall. What was more interesting about this situation was the fact that Charles wanted them there and he welcomed them to stand alongside the rest of the family… all while Prince William’s camp sent out a dozen briefings, all seething about how Charles was so foolish to welcome his nieces.

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