"She insisted that the staff spend time with their families for Christmas and that we leave the food in the refrigerator," revealed a former chef.
Divorces are messy, and when it includes members of the royal family, things always tend to get very awkward. When Princess Diana and Prince Charles divorced, she was freed from all her obligations as a member of the royal family as well. In 1996, when Prince William, Prince Harry, and the rest of the members of the Royal family spent Christmas together, Diana was all alone. Little did people know it would be her last Christmas on earth.
Royal chef Darren McGrady spoke about how "sad" it was to see Diana on Christmas Eve, according to Express. "It was always pretty sad when you worked with the Princess on Christmas Eve. William and Harry were going to Sandringham and Princess Diana was there, alone."
"She insisted that the staff spend time with their families for Christmas and that we leave the food in the refrigerator."
The staff there would then make food and leave it in the fridge so that Diana could heat it and eat it, as and when she felt hungry. When the Princess of Wales was married to the Prince of Wales, the two of them would go to Sandringham, along with their relatives, in order to celebrate Christmas. She reportedly didn't look forward to the stay because, as McGrady put it, "you just couldn’t get away."
"Sandringham was so tight, so compact," added McGrady. "There were so many people there, all the families."
"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.”
The chef then recalled that Diana would often step out for some relief. Another article by Express states that Diana had a hard time coping with fame when she joined the family in 1981. It was especially hard for her to cope during Christmas with the rest of the family, author Ingrid Seward wrote in her 2000 book, The Queen and Di: The Untold Story.
Diana felt especially "isolated” while the Royal Family performed their numerous Christmas traditions and rituals. "There were other obstacles to overcome and Diana balked at everyone. Fitting in with the Christmas rituals of someone else’s family is a trial for many newlyweds - and no family comes with such a complete set of customs as the Windsors. She felt, she said, ‘an outsider’ terrified and ‘so disappointed’,” Seward wrote.
Princess Diana died on August 31, 1997, in a car accident in Paris. It's now been 24 years since her death.
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Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Steve Wood
