If your boss is an ordinary corporate executive, it's hard enough to get through the difficult task of Christmas gift-giving. But if you worked for Princess Diana ......” Former royal butler Paul Burrell told Marie Claire that there are some gifts that could have resulted in an awkward Christmas moment with that stylish royal.

On behalf of Spin Genie, Burrell talks about the late princess's favorite gift over the years, saying that one year he “gave her a pair of Chanel costume jewelry earrings.” The former butler said, “She loved those chunky earrings, so I thought it was a good choice for her.” So what went wrong?

Burrell “reminded” Princess Diana not to give her “earrings with the letter C intertwined. Given that Princess Diana's husband, Prince Charles, had an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, the double C in the Chanel logo would have been a difficult reminder of her failed marriage.

Although Diana wore Chanel items before her divorce, like the gold and black button earrings she wore to a Christmas event in London in 1993, she chose to move away from the iconic “C” design after the divorce.

In a 2018 interview with Harper's Bazaar magazine, designer Jason Branson said that when he worked with her for an event in Australia in 1996, the princess refused to wear anything with the Chanel logo.

“She came out with a bunch of shoes and bags and threw them all on the couch,” Branson said of his encounter with the princess. After examining the debris, he said, “I found a pair of Chanel shoes.”

“I said, ‘These look great on Versace,’ and she said, ‘No, I can't wear the linked C, the double C.’”

Along with Chanel, another thing Diana avoided for Christmas after her divorce was heading to Sandringham with the royal family. Burrell told Marie Claire magazine that the princess celebrated with Prince Harry and Prince William “the weekend before” and left her sons behind to spend Christmas with the royal family.

“Diana then spent Christmas alone,” he recalls.