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The Queen used to buy 1,500 members of staff a £6 Christmas present with a personal note each and every year. The late Queen Elizabeth II, who died back in September 2022, has been praised for her generosity after the annual tradition.
The Queen would buy £6 Christmas puddings from Tesco for staff members, it has emerged. A source told The Mail: “About 1,500 Christmas puddings paid for by The Queen (through the Privy Purse) are distributed to staff throughout the Palaces, staff in the Court Post Office and Palace police.”
They continued to say that she would sweetly add to each gift with a personal note: “Each pudding is accompanied by a greeting card from The Queen.” Every year, the monarch had ordered presents for everyone in the royal household and usually gave them alongside a Christmas pudding.
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She paid for around 1,500 of the puddings every festive season through the Privy Purse (her private income). Gifts in the past have included a special trinket box, champagne flutes, or a photo frame engraved with the Queen’s personal cypher.
The puddings and presents were typically distributed to staff throughout the palaces, the Court Post Office and the Palace police. In previous years, each of them was accompanied with a greeting card from the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who died back in 2021.
The Monarch personally handed over gifts to a small selection of staff by the Christmas trees at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace to say thanks for their hard work. Usually the Queen would order her puddings from Harrods or royal grocer Fortnum & Mason.
But in her later years she opted for Tesco, Hello! magazine reports. It reduced the price of a pud from around £17.99 to a far more waller and purse-friendly price point of £6 to £8.
