With Prince George’s 12th birthday right around the corner, the Waleses will no doubt be indulging in a years-long tradition that was initiated by Princess Diana, that Prince William struggles with every year
With Prince George ’s 12th birthday just around the corner, the royal family will no doubt be celebrating the milestone day. With many birthday traditions to honour as the second in line to the throne approaches his adolescence, the Waleses are expected to pull out all the stops to make the day special.
Princess Kate has previously shared details of a series of birthday traditions the family indulge in, including the fact that Kate will often stay up until midnight to make birthday cakes for her children’s big days. However, there is one cheeky tradition that was originated by Princess Diana, that Prince William struggles with each year.
The tradition first began when Princess Diana would give the children of her good friend, Julia Samuel, noisy gifts that were difficult to put together: entertaining the child and frustrating the parents in equal measure.
Julia, who is one of Prince George’s seven godparents, has since passed the tradition down to the Wales family, meaning year after year, Prince William gets stuck with the irritating task.
Samuels first talked about the funny tradition when she was a guest on the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, in an episode in 2020 to mark what would have been Diana’s 59th birthday, as she explained: “I do to George what [Diana] did to us, which is give impossible toys that are really noisy and take a lot of making.
“William then has to spend days putting them together. And then put all the machinery together, and it makes awful tooting noises and lights flashing and all of that.”
She added that the rest of the family takes great pleasure in watching William struggle with the gifts, especially “cheeky” George. She explained that it “makes [her] laugh, and it makes George laugh.”
Asked about her royal godson George, Julia said he was “amazing”, adding her dear friend Diana would have adored him too. “He’s funny and feisty and cheeky and God she [Diana] would have loved him so much,” she said. “That is heart-breaking for all of them.”
Princess Diana never got to meet her grandchildren, as she was just 36 years old when she tragically died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Prince William was 15 years old at the time of his mother’s death, while Prince Harry was just 12.
Despite the fact that Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis never got to meet their grandmother, Prince William has long talked about how he keeps her memory alive with his three children by making sure they all know details about Diana’s life.
During an appearance in the 2017 ITV documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, William said: “So we’ve got more photos up round the house now of her and we talk about her a bit and stuff. And it’s hard because obviously Catherine didn’t know her, so she cannot really provide that level of detail.
“So I do, regularly, putting George or Charlotte to bed, talk about her and just try and remind them that there are two grandmothers, there were two grandmothers in their lives. And so it’s important that they know who she was and that she existed.”