It is no secret that Princess Diana did not like celebrating Christmas with her royal in-laws. As former butler Paul Burrell recently told “Marie Claire,” Princess Diana felt that Christmas at Sandringham was “like a pressure cooker.”

Princess Diana's holiday season was far from the fairy-tale experience many might imagine. For Princess Diana, the royal Christmas gatherings, filled with complicated rules, only accentuated her deep loneliness and disillusionment with her family.

In the latest episode of The Sun's “Royal Exclusive” program, two royal experts discussed the royal Christmas traditions and how Princess Diana was able to escape the festivities.

“For years, our Queen Camilla spent time with her own family in Wiltshire after lunch,” famed royal photographer Arthur Edwards said in the episode.

Ingrid Sward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, added, “Princess Diana always went out after lunch. When things weren't really going well, she dreaded these royal family Christmases.”

“And she would always, and sometimes even before lunch, slip out and go to church,” she continued.

Edwards, who has been photographing the Royal Family for decades, said, “Not always, but I remember a few times.

Princess Diana found the royal family's Christmas traditions rigid, impersonal, and marked by strict rituals that made her feel like an outsider. During the first holiday season she spent with the family, the princess, who was excited about the lavish gifts, was “appalled to learn on Christmas Eve that the royal family only gave each other silly gag gifts” (via Vanity Fair).

But as Burrell told Marie Claire, Diana “knew it was her duty,” so “she had to grin and bear it.”

That does not mean, as Edwards and Sward pointed out, that the royals did not make runners. Burrell adds, “She tried to get out of there as fast as she could, but there was a huge personality there that she couldn't deal with.”