We love sharing holiday traditions with our family and friends year after year. There’s something special about caroling and making Christmas cookies and decorating the Christmas tree. We love taking our kids to have their pictures taken with Santa, and we love the expressions on their faces when they see gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. We sometimes even enjoy ugly Christmas sweater contests and matching family Christmas pajamas.

All of this thinking about our own holiday traditions got us curious about what holiday traditions the royal family enjoys. While we already knew they celebrated the holidays as a family, we assumed their celebration wouldn’t be anything like ours. We were right, but not exactly in the way we thought.

While being a royal can have its perks (we love the tiaras), it can also be a little odd, and as the holidays approach, we’ve discovered that the royals do in fact have quite a few holiday traditions, but just like everything else royal, their traditions are not quite like what we’re used to. That’s putting it mildly. Some of their traditions are just plain weird.

While Meghan Markle was included in the holiday festivities last year, this will be her first time celebrating as an official royal. As an American, she must have been a little surprised when she experienced some of their odd traditions for the first time. We know we would have been.

Now, at first glance, some of the royal traditions seem completely normal. It’s when you dig a little deeper that you realize their traditions are anything but normal.

Do they have a gift exchange? Yes, of course, but it’s definitely not what you’d be expecting. We were quite surprised when we learned what Meghan Markle gave the Queen last year. Hint: it wasn’t a tiara.

Do they decorate for Christmas? Yes, of course, the staff decorates. While many people leave the decorations up a few days or even weeks after Christmas, the royals take it a step further with an almost morbid tradition.

Do they eat delicious holiday food? We can only imagine how delicious it must be, but it seems that it’s quite important that they fully enjoy the holiday feast. We were really surprised when we found out a very weird tradition they have before and after dinner.

To see just how odd these traditions are, watch the video below.

Which royal holiday tradition did you find the most surprising? What are your favorite holiday traditions?