Exiled in California, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will not spend Christmas in Sandringham with Her Majesty Elizabeth II. A first for the Crown? Far from it.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are preparing to spend a family Christmas in California, where they took refuge at the height of the health crisis after living in Canada.
The Sussex family will celebrate the end of the year with little Archie, but also with friends Katharine McPhee, pregnant with her first child, and David Foster. A long way from Her Majesty Elizabeth II and England, where a new strain of Covid-19 “out of control” according to British Health Minister Matt Hancock has appeared. But this is not a first for the monarchy’s rebels.
Indeed, in 2019, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had already been conspicuous by their absence during the Royal Christmas in Sandringham, after having answered the appointment twice in 2017 and 2018. At the time, they had preferred the Canadian city of Vancouver to the festivities of Her Majesty Elizabeth II.
A first Christmas as parents, the former actress having given birth to her son in May of the same year, and an experience that the lovebirds are ready to repeat, this time in their Californian home, their first in the United States. “Meghan really wants to organize the first Christmas in their new home with her mom [Doria Ragland, already with them in Canada in 2019, editor’s note],” said one of the couple’s relatives.
“She’s really excited and plans to practice all the traditions she grew up with as a child, including cooking,” he said. After a Canadian Christmas, little Archie will be treated to an American-style celebration.
Post-Megxit anger appeased
Away from the eyes but certainly not from the heart. For while Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will be celebrating Christmas at their luxurious Montecito home in Santa Barbara, they are keeping a thought for the Windsor-Mountbatten clan, and especially for Kate Middleton and Prince William.
Closer than ever to reconciliation with the Cambridge family, the Sussex have even taken another step towards reconciliation by sending them touching gifts. After the Megxit and the coronavirus – which targeted Prince William and his father, Prince Charles – tensions would have eased.