When Royals Exchange Gifts, they Get Something “Cheap and Cheerful”

The British Royal Family on Christmas Day in 2017. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Do the British royals exchange expensive gifts and lavish presents on Christmas? Apparently not and they prefer to keep it cheap and cheerful. On Christmas Eve, the family is said to gather in the red drawing room at 6 p.m., where they place their presents on trestle tables covered with white linen. Then, they would exchange their gifts after teatime, according to the Royal Family’s website.  They prefer cheap but hilarious gifts over lavish presents. Princess Anne once jokingly gave her brother, Prince Charles, a white leather loo seat while William gave Philip a gumboot-shaped soap. Harry presented the Queen with a shower cap with the inscriptions ‘Ain’t life a bitch?’ The Duchess of Cambridge once gave Prince Harry, a ‘grow your own girlfriend’ kit.

Lady Elizabeth Anson, the Queen’s second cousin and party planner, explains that the monarch enjoys receiving useful, practical gifts. Once she received a washing-up apron, and to her delight she declared: ‘It’s just what we wanted.’ She was also given a casserole gift one time.

When she was just a newly minted member of the Royal Family, Diana, Princess of Wales, “fell foul” of the royals’ “cheap and cheerful” ceremony. She bought an expensive cashmere sweater for Princess Anne only to receive a kitschy loo-roll holder in exchange. She learned her lesson and so later gifted her sister-in-law, the Duchess of  York, with a leopard-print bath mat.