Despite dating Prince William since around 2003, it wasn’t for eight more years that the Princess of Wales spent her first Christmas at Sandringham House with the Royal Family. It's been suggested that Queen Elizabeth had invited her for Christmas Day years earlier, but that Catherine turned down the offer, respecting tradition.
It's usual for partners to only experience a royal Christmas after they're married. With this milestone reached in 2011, Catherine had to think about what she would gift the late Queen Elizabeth - and she decided to make it personal.
The Princess spoke about that first Christmas on the ITV documentary, Our Queen at 90 and revealed she had worried her homemade gift could've gone "wrong".
"I can remember being at Sandringham, for the first time, at Christmas, and I was worried what to give the Queen as her Christmas gift," she explained. "I was thinking, 'Gosh, what should I give her?'"
To get into the mindset of what to give her, the Princess of Wales took the clever approach of imagining what her grandparents might like. After all, Queen Elizabeth might have been Britain's longest-reigning monarch, but she was also a devoted mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
Catherine continued, "I thought back to what would I give my own grandparents, and I thought, 'I’ll make her something'. Which could have gone horribly wrong, but I decided to make my granny’s recipe of chutney."
After initially being anxious about what to gift Queen Elizabeth for Christmas in the first place, the Princess shared that she then found herself "slightly worried" about her choice of chutney too. Thankfully, it went down a storm with the monarch and she made her appreciation clear the next day.
"I was slightly worried about it, but I noticed the next day that it was on the table," she added. "I think such a simple gesture went such a long way for me, and I’ve noticed since she’s done that on lots of occasions, and I think it just shows her thoughtfulness, really, and her care in looking after everybody."
The late Queen’s thoughtfulness also shone through in the way she made things extra special for the younger members of the Royal Family. The Princess of Wales shared that Prince George, Charlotte and Louis would have a small gift left in their rooms from their great-grandmother.
“She always leaves a little gift or something in their room when we go and stay, and that just shows her love for her family,” Catherine said.
Given the mum-of-three’s wording, it sounds as though Queen Elizabeth’s present-giving tradition wasn’t something restricted to Christmas. Instead, it seems like she arranged for the gifts just whenever they were coming to stay with her and she often hosted her family at Balmoral Castle in the summer as well as at Sandringham at Christmas.
