Prince Harry Once Received a “Cold-Blooded” Christmas Gift From an Unexpected Royal….Read More

The present was from a member of the family that he felt “nothing for.”

The British royal family is known for their Christmas traditions, both new and old, with one of the most widely known being the exchange of funny gag gifts instead of lavish or expensive presents. Prince Harry was no stranger to the tradition, but once received a gag gift from a royal that left him feeling unimpressed.

Hello! reported that Prince Harry, as written in his memoir Spare, once received a “pen with a small rubber fish wrapped around it, which he described as a ‘cold-blooded’ gift.” As for the royal who gifted him the item, it was Princess Margaret—who the Duke of Sussex didn’t exactly have the best relationship with, as he wrote that he felt “nothing for her, except a bit of pity and a lot of jumpiness.

Spare also hinted at how Harry and wife Meghan Markle may have spent their Christmas this year. In the book, he revealed that he and Markle “FaceTimed with several friends, including a few in Britain. We watched Archie running around the tree. And we opened presents. Keeping to the Windsor family tradition.” He continued, “The whole family gathered to open gifts on Christmas Eve, as always, a German tradition that survived the anglicizing of the family surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.

Harry isn’t the only one who’s had experience with receiving gag gifts. When Princess Diana was still alive, Harry and Prince William would get gag gifts from her, which they liked a lot more. “The weekend before Christmas, the three of them would disappear into the sitting room and you could hear the squeals and laughter coming out,” former royal butler Paul Burrell said. “Of course, Diana was very jokey and she would put rude things in there to embarrass them,” he continued. “William had a calendar one year with naked ladies on it just to make him blush and it worked.”