She found it “terrifying and so disappointing.”

Princess Diana

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The holiday season conjures up warm and fuzzy feelings for many people, bringing with it caroling, traditions, special home-cooked meals, and thoughtful gift-giving. However, it isn’t so heartfelt and comforting for everyone. For some, Christmastime includes not-so-fun, not-so-cheery activities, like packing into a house and rubbing elbows with your in-laws. As was the case for Princess Diana, who absolutely despised spending Christmas with the royal family.

According to royal biographer Andrew Morton, who wrote Diana: Her True Story, the late princess developed contempt for the traditional royal holiday celebrations during her first Sandringham Christmas in 1981.

Princess Diana

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During her first Christmas with the family, which came just five months after she wed then-Prince Charles on July 29, 1981, she was already pregnant with Prince William. Despite experiencing morning sickness, she still bought “her new family members thoughtful and expensive gifts,” per Vanity Fair.

Diana was “mortified” on Christmas morning to find out royal family members only gave each other gag gifts. She gifted her sister-in-law Princess Anne a cashmere sweater and received a toilet paper holder in return.

“It was highly fraught,” Princess Diana told Morton. “I know I gave, but I can’t remember being a receiver. Isn’t that awful? I do all the presents, and Charles signs the cards. [It was] terrifying and so disappointing. No boisterous behavior, lots of tension, silly behavior, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd, but insiders understood,” she said, adding that she “sure was” an outsider.

Princess Diana and Prince William

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Diana had expressed her disdain over spending Christmas with the Windsors to her hairdresser Richard Dalton as well.

“The princess just hated going to Sandringham for Christmas,” Dalton told Kitty Kelley for her book The Royals. “She told me it was freezing cold and dinner had to be over by 3 o’clock. ‘It’s 3 and time to watch me on TV,’ she’d say, imitating you-know-who. The royal family had to watch the Queen’s Christmas message on television. Diana said it was a command performance.”

Diana’s Christmases reportedly got worse and lonelier over the years, as she and Charles became estranged.

“I used to get calls from her on Christmas Eve and she was alone,” one of Diana’s friends told Tina Brown for her book The Diana Chronicles. “Whenever we talked it was all about tactics. What to do next.”

Princess Diana and princes William and Harry greeting a crowd

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After 11 royal Christmases and years of marriage, Diana and Charles formally separated on December 9, 1992. The same month, she spent her first Christmas away from her sons, Princes William and Harry.

It appears Diana isn’t the only royal who tried to avoid their in-laws during the holidays. Her son William appears to be following suit when it comes to the Middletons. Although he adores Princess Kate’s family, according to royal author Christopher Andersen, they are a really intense bunch when it comes to family game night, so much so, that he tries to get out of their activities at all costs.

“William and Kate’s card games are so heated and all-consuming that William makes excuses to avoid being sucked in,” Andersen said during the podcast. “But away from his win-at-all-costs Middleton in-laws, William has never shied away from going up against Kate in a contest.”