Princess Diana “Escaped” From “Terrifying” Royal Family Christmases at Sandringham “As Soon As She Could”
For most, the holidays bring gatherings with loved ones, special recipes, piles of gifts, and well-deserved R&R after a long year. For some, they also come with family strife and uncomfortable situations. Unfortunately, the latter was the case for Princess Diana, who felt such uneasiness spending Christmas with the royal family at Sandringham Estate that they made a movie about it.
Even if fans haven’t seen the 2021 film Spencer (starring Kristen Stewart), they’ve likely heard the tales of Diana’s unhappy holidays with the British monarchy. The late royal herself said she “hated” the family’s traditional Christmas celebrations, referring to them as “highly fraught” to Andrew Morton, royal biographer and editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine.
According to Morton, Diana’s disdain for Christmas at Sandringham began as early as her first Christmas in 1981, just five months after she wed then-Prince Charles in July of that year. Diana was pregnant with Prince William at the time and experiencing morning sickness; despite her ailments, she still took the time “to buy her new family members thoughtful and expensive gifts,” Vanity Fair reported.
She was “mortified” to learn on Christmas day that the royal family only gave each other gag gifts. For example, she gave her sister-in-law Princess Anne a cashmere sweater and received a toilet paper holder in return.
âI know I gave, but I canât remember being a receiver. Isnât that awful? I do all the presents, and Charles signs the cards,” Diana told Morton. “No boisterous behavior, lots of tension, silly behavior, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd, but insiders understood. I sure was [an outsider.]”
Royal tradition dictates that the family’s Christmas schedule includes a morning walk to church at St. Mary Magdalene on the estateâs grounds, followed by lunch, and then the monarch’s annual speech.
Diana’s hairdresser Richard Dalton elaborated on Diana’s dislike for the day, telling Kitty Kelley for her book The Royals, âThe princess just hated going to Sandringham for Christmas. She told me it was freezing cold and dinner had to be over by 3 oâclock. âItâs 3 and time to watch me on TV,â sheâd say, imitating you-know-who. The royal family had to watch the Queenâs Christmas message on television. Diana said it was a command performance.â
Things only worsened as Diana and Charles’s marriage grew tenser. âI used to get calls from her on Christmas Eve and she was alone,â a friend of Dianaâs told Tina Brown for her book The Diana Chronicles. âWhenever we talked it was all about tactics. What to do next.â
Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell shared a similar sentiment with Marie Claire last year, saying she described the holiday as a “pressure cooker” and had to “grin and bear it” because she “knew that was her duty.”
âShe would escape it as soon as she could, but there were huge personalities in there she couldnât cope with,â Burrell concluded.