The late Princess of Wales used to dread spending the festive season with ‘the Firm’ and was once humiliated when she broke the royal secret santa rules after Charles did not tell her how to properly play.

Princess Diana dreaded spending the festive period with the Royal Family according to experts (Image: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)

Princess Diana did not enjoy spending the Christmas period with the Royal Family and was keen to enjoy the festivities alone according to a royal expert.

The holiday season could become “too much” for those not used to royal traditions, such as the former Princess of Wales.

Royal commentator Lady Colin Campbell previously told the Express: “Diana did not like Christmas with the Windsors.

“She was very keen to disappear into her room as much as she could.”

The late royal, who is the mother of Prince Harry and Prince William, also reportedly broke a long standing tradition during her first Christmas with the Royal Family, the Mirror reports.

The late Princess of Wales broke the royal novelty Christmas gift tradition after her former husband Prince Charles did not inform her of the rules (Image: Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)

The monarchy has many festive traditions, one of which is that they only give one another novelty presents.

For example, one year Kate Middleton presented Prince Harry with a hilarious ‘grow your own girlfriend kit’ before his romance with Meghan Markle began.

On another occasion, the duke reportedly left the late Queen chuckling after he gave her a shower cap that said “ain’t life a b***h” while the duchess gifted the former monarch a singing hamster on a string which went down a treat with the royal corgis.

However, as a newlywed in 1981, Diana was not aware of the tradition and chose to play it safe by buying Princess Anne a cashmere jumper according to experts who spoke on the Royals podcast.

Writer Zoe Borrell said: “When Diana first went she didn’t know that there was this joke present tradition.

“So she had got Princess Anne this gorgeous cashmere jumper. It was all very sensible and expensive.

“And she handed it over and she hadn’t been made aware that it was just novelty presents.

“Poor thing. They don’t communicate very well.”

Diana and Charles’ marriage was rocky for the majority of Prince William and Harry’s childhood before she died in 1997 (Image: Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)

Zoe said that Diana’s former husband, Charles “should have told her” about the joke presents before they all swapped gifts.

While royal writer Angela Mollard explained: “I don’t think they were talking much.

“They got married in August and I don’t think they were talking by December. So he didn’t give her that information and she was very annoyed about it.”

The following year, Diana was clued up about the royal Secret Santa rules and gifted Fergie a leopard-print bath mat.

However, it’s been claimed that the late princess did not enjoy spending Christmas with the other royals at the countryside retreat.

Royal chef Darren McGrady alleges that Diana was more interested in talking to staff than the other dinner guests.

He told Yahoo: “Once the Queen and the royals had left the dining room, Princess Diana just liked to come in for a chat.”

The chef said she’d “just sort of walk around the kitchen” to see what was going on as he added: “Sandringham was so tight, so compact, there were so many people there, all the families.”

He continued: “You just couldn’t get away. You came out of the dining room and you couldn’t go into the sitting room because there were three or four people in there playing charades or Scrabble or something.”

Princess Diana felt very lonely around the festive period and “couldn’t wait to escape” the royals (Image: Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images)

Mr McGrady said he would bump into the former Princess of Wales who would often go for a walk on her own.

Her former butler Paul Burrell claims that she once told him she would be “crawling the walls” by the end of a Christmas at Sandringham and “couldn’t wait to escape”.

This year will be the Royal Family’s second Christmas under King Charles reign but the late Queen’s festive traditions will continue on.

Then on Christmas Day, the royal children eat separately to adults for their festive meal, according to Zara Tindall’s husband, Mike.

The former rugby player who is married to the King’s niece Zara previously revealed that the youngsters traditionally sit in a separate room for the event.