Princess Diana's first Christmas with the Royal Family in 1981 wasn't exactly the cozy family gathering she might have hoped for. The royals' unique holiday traditions— particularly their fondness for "silly gag gifts"—left the young princess feeling more than a little uncomfortable, especially when it came to one surprising present from her sister-in-law, Princess Anne.
Diana, already struggling with the suffocating protocol of royal life, found herself thrust into a world of complicated rules that left her feeling lost and lonely. "It was fairly fraught," she told royal biographer Andrew Morton, author of Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words, when describing royal Christmas celebrations.
"Isn't that awful?" she continued. "I can't remember what people bought me. I do all the presents and Princes Charles signs the cards." The late princess went on to tell Morton that she found Christmas with the royals "terrifying and so disappointing."
"No boisterous behavior; lots of tension, silly behavior, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd but insiders understood. I sure was [an outsider]," Diana added.
Per Vanity Fair, Princess Diana came to her first royal Christmas with "thoughtful and expensive gifts from catalogues including Floris soap, cashmere sweaters, and luxurious children’s clothes." In return she got...a toilet paper holder.
The late princess "was mortified on Christmas Eve, when she discovered that the Royal Family only gave each other silly gag gifts," Vanity Fair reported, adding that while she gave her new-sister-in-law the Princess Royal a cashmere sweater, Anne gave Diana a bathroom accessory.
Luckily, in 1982, Princess Diana caught on to the tradition. Per the Mirror, "The next year she cracked it giving Fergie a leopard-print bath mat."
For some reason bathroom-themed gifts seem to be particularly popular with the royals (especially Princess Anne). The Princess Royal once gave her brother The King a "white leather toilet seat," according to the Mirror. Prince Harry also got in the bathroom fun one year, hilariously gifting his grandmother Queen Elizabeth a shower cap reading "Ain't life a bitch."
It seems Diana eventually found a fondness for gag gifts with her own kids over the years, too. Former royal butler recently told Marie Claire that his late boss once hid a racy "naked ladies" calendar in Prince William's stocking "to make him blush."
