Princess Diana "Escaped Even Before Lunch" During Dreaded Royal Christmases

It's no secret that Princess Diana wasn't a fan of celebrating Christmas with her royal in-laws. Her relationship with the Royal Family—especially during the festive season—was often strained, and as her former butler Paul Burrell recently told Marie Claire, she found Christmas at Sandringham to be "like a pressure cooker."

Princess Diana's holiday seasons were far from the fairytale experience many might imagine. For her, royal Christmas gatherings, full of complicated rules, only emphasized her deep isolation and growing disillusionment with the family.

In the latest episode of the Sun's Royal Exclusive show, two royal experts discussed the Royal Family's Christmas traditions—and how Princess Diana used to escape the festivities.

"For many years, our Queen Camilla, she would leave after lunch and go and spend time with her own family down in Wiltshire," famed royal photographer Arthur Edwards said during the episode.

Majesty magazine editor-in-chief Ingrid Seward chimed in that "Diana used to always leave after lunch. When things were really not going at all well, she was to dread these royal family Christmases."

“And she would always—and sometimes she escaped even before lunch and just did the church," she continued.

Edwards, who has been photographing the Royal Family for decades, added, "Not always but a few times I remember yes, I remember her passing me on the motorway coming back once.”

Princess Diana found the royal Christmas traditions to be stiff and impersonal, marked by rigid protocols that left her feeling like an outsider. During her first holiday season with the family, the princess, who'd splashed out on luxury presents, was left "mortified on Christmas Eve, when she discovered that the Royal Family only gave each other silly gag gifts" (via Vanity Fair).

However, as Burrell tells Marie Claire, "she had to grin and bear it" since Diana "knew that was her duty."

That doesn't mean—as Edwards and Seward noted—that the royal wouldn't make a runner. "She would escape it as soon as she could but there were huge personalities in there she couldn’t cope with," Burrell adds.