Find out why Princess Diana was not a fan of something the royal family did every year for Christmas.
Millions of people around the world who celebrate Christmas have special holiday traditions. The same goes for the royal family as some of their traditions at Christmastime go back centuries.
The royals gather every year to celebrate the festive period at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle, gave fans some insight into what being with the family at Christmas was like when she described it during the Netflix series Harry & Meghan.
“I remember so vividly, the first Christmas at Sandringham. Calling my mum and she’s like ‘How’s it going?’ And I was like ‘Oh my gosh, it’s amazing,’” the duchess recalled. “It’s just like a big family like I always wanted. And there was just this constant movement and energy and fun.”
But not everyone who spent Christmas with the royals enjoyed it. Princess Diana actually called it “fraught,” “tense,” and said she was “mortified” when she learned about something “silly” the family does every year.
Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana, and Princess Anne leave St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham on Christmas Day (circa 1985) | Anwar Hussein/Getty ImagesWhy Princess Diana was ‘mortified’ when she exchanged Christmas gifts with the royals
The royals exchange and open their presents on Christmas Eve. Opening gifts the night before goes back to the family’s German ancestry and was set during Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837 to 1901. But something that threw Diana for a loop is they don’t give each other the nicest gifts.
Express noted that in her recordings to biographer Andrew Morton, Diana claimed she was “mortified” when she found out the members of the Firm gave each other cheap gag gifts. She remembered handing her sister-in-law Princess Anne a cashmere sweater only to receive a toilet paper holder in return.
Former royal chef Darren McGrady told People that “[Princess] Diana got upset because she bought cashmere sweaters and she thought that would be nice, but they don’t do that … It’s not about something really amazing or a Cartier watch.”
Diana also said in her tapes to Morton that the whole celebration at Sandringham was “highly fraught … [It was] so disappointing … No boisterous behavior, lots of tension, silly behavior, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd, but insiders understood.”
Princess Diana after a Christmas Day service at Sandringham | Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images
Princess Diana’s daughter-in-law thinks what the royals do is ‘weird’
While Diana wasn’t a fan of exchanging the little joke gifts with the royals, her daughter-in-law, Kate, doesn’t like opening presents the night before as she would rather open them on Christmas Day. According to the Daily Beast, it’s a tradition Prince William’s wife is reportedly planning to scrap in the coming years.
A source close to Kate said: “She has always found the presents on Christmas Eve thing weird. It is definitely going to be got rid of when [she and Prince William] are officially running things.
“I imagine it will continue this year at Sandringham in some shape or form but … You can bet your bottom dollar [the Waleses] will be doing proper presents for each other and the kids there on Christmas Day.”
