From lavish meals to church services, royal holiday traditions are well known. And while most of these customs are appropriately formal and regal, the royal family has one cheerful rule when it comes to exchanging gifts.

The royal family gathers every Christmas Eve (celebrated a day early, in keeping with German custom) to exchange cheeky gag gifts, as opposed to the more expensive items one would expect from the world's most famous family. But given that most royals already have everything they want, it makes sense that they don't take their gifts too seriously.

You're not alone in your surprise at this tradition: Princess Diana was unaware of the gag gift rule until she spent her first Christmas with Prince Charles in 1981. Instead of meaningless novelty items, Princess Diana gave Princess Anne a beautiful cashmere sweater. What Anne gave back to Diana was a toilet paper holder.

The following Christmas, however, Princess Diana came through with a gift that was a complete fool's errand: a leopard-print bath mat for her sister-in-law Sarah Ferguson (aka "Fergie").

Princess Diana was not the last to marry into the royal family and adopt the ritual of exchanging silly gifts; in 2017, when newly engaged Meghan Markle spent her first royal Christmas, she decided to give the queen a hamster singing toy. The toy reportedly made the queen burst out laughing and then said, "You can play with my dog."

In addition to impressing her future mother-in-law, Meghan's gift to Prince William was also a big hit. According to the book Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family, she presented Prince William with an innovative spoon embossed with "Serial Killer."

Kate Middleton, on the other hand, took a slightly more thoughtful approach to gift-giving on her first Christmas with the family in 2011. She decided to give the Queen a jar of homemade chutney made from her own grandmother's family recipe. Appearing in a documentary marking the Queen's 90th birthday, Kate revealed, "I was a little worried, but the next day I noticed it on the table."

She then gave it to her grandmother, who had been a member of the Queen's family for many years.

According to "The List," this special tradition was started by the Queen, who "thought it best many years ago to take the pressure off of finding the perfect gift and make the exchange really fun." It remains to be seen if this year's gift exchange will be the same as in previous years, but hopefully the royals will have wrapped gifts as interesting as those handed out in the past.