The Royal Family Has a Surprising Christmas Present Tradition

One word that is not often associated with the royals? Frugal. Most people probably imagine the royal family leading rather extravagant lives filled with palaces, horse drawn carriages, designer clothes. But what do you give to the people who already have—well—everything? Apparently, they like to keep things surprisingly low-budget.

"They love doing gag gift exchanges and a Sandringham walkabout,” a source told Us Weekly. “They don’t do anything extravagant for gifts and do more funny gifts that make each other laugh."

There is a long tradition of "gag gifts" among the royals. When Prince William was young, for instance, his mother, Princess Diana, once gave him a "racy" gag gift.

"The weekend before Christmas, the three of them [Diana, William, and Prince Harry] would disappear into the sitting room and you could hear the squeals and laughter coming out," Diana's longtime butler Paul Burrell said recently to Marie Claire. "Of course, Diana was very jokey and she would put rude things in there to embarrass them. William had a calendar one year with naked ladies on it just to make him blush and it worked."

More recently, Kate Middleton gifted her brother-in-law a "Grow Your Own Girlfriend" kit—this was, of course, before Harry started dating Meghan Markle. Other gag gifts over the years have included a white leather toilet seat, which Princess Anne allegedly gave to her brother Prince Charles, and a shower cap that read "Ain’t Life a B****", which Prince Harry allegedly gave to the late Queen Elizabeth, as per the Express.

Although the royal family's gag gift tradition is thought to date back around a century to Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert, there are new reasons why cheaper gifts might appeal to the family today.

For one thing, King Charles reportedly hates expensive gifts. As former royal butler Grant Harrold told The Mirror, "The King hates being given anything extravagant and expensive. He'd be embarrassed if you spent a fortune on him. He'd say, 'That's lovely but you really shouldn't have.'" Although the former butler didn't participate in the gag gift tradition, he typically gave the king an affordable book or a "honey-based product".

There is also a growing sentiment among the younger royals that they should try to live a more "middle-class", "normal" lifestyle. Kate Middleton, for instance, is keen to introduce "normal" Christmas traditions to her children and to do away with the royal tradition of opening gifts on Christmas Eve. “Kate has always found the presents on Christmas Eve thing weird," a source told the Daily Beast. "It is definitely going to be got rid of when they are officially running things. I imagine it will continue this year at Sandringham in some shape or form, but everything is going to be much more relaxed and have a middle-class flavor at Anmer Hall."

As the Us Weekly source explained, this year, the royal Christmas will be a little more "low-key" in the wake of Middleton and Charles' cancer treatments. "After everything they have been through and the difficult year, Kate is most excited about sharing the magic of Christmas with her children, helping to decorate Sandringham, and hosting her caroling event,” the source said. “Kate cherishes the traditions."

Read the original article on InStyle