The Royal Family are known for their gag gifts during Christmas, which they exchange on Christmas Eve to honour their German heritage. Prince Harry was a firm fixture in the royal festivities before he quit his royal duties in 2020 and moved to the US with his wife Meghan Markle.
But even the Duke of Sussex, who was said to have a penchant for jokey, sometimes obscene, gifts to his family, was once left baffled by a weird gift he described as “cold-blooded” by one of his relatives.
The royal wrote all about his unusual gift from his great-aunt and the late Queen’s sister Princess Margaret or “Aunt Margo” in his memoir Spare.
He claimed he didn’t know Margaret very well despite sharing “12.5 percent” of her DNA. Harry wrote: “Standing before my pile, I chose to open the smallest present first. The tag said: ‘From Aunt Margo’. I looked over, called out: ‘Thank you, Aunt Margo!'”
As it turned out Princess Margaret got him a “special” biro with a rubber fish wrapped around it.
The Duke added: “It wasn’t just any biro, she pointed out. It had a tiny rubber fish wrapped around it. I said: ‘Oh. A fish biro! OK.’ I told myself: That is cold-blooded.”
Harry also wrote that he and Princess Margaret “should’ve been friends” as the Firm’s “two spares”. He said: “Her relationship with Granny wasn’t an exact analogue of mine with Willy, but pretty close. The simmering rivalry, the intense competition (driven largely by the older sibling), it all looked familiar.
“Aunt Margo also wasn’t that dissimilar from Mummy. Both rebels, both labelled as sirens.”
