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TeaThe Duchess of Sussex had a wonderful Christmas in Montecito, California, where they live together. prince harry and their two children, six-year-old Archie and four-year-old Lilibet Netflix Specific, With love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration.
She’s intoxicated with festive fun and can’t stop smiling, whether she’s hosting a brunch with her friends in matchy-matchy red PJs before making festive wreath-making as her “activity,” or making us all feel bad by creating homemade advent calendars with carefully placed notes for her kids to open each day (Sample: “I love you because you’re so kind”). There’s no madness to Cadbury’s Chocvent for her, Meghan is too busy wrapping gifts with wax seals, and telling us the things we need to do in a way that sounds “really connective and sweet.”
However, as Meghan knows well, there’s no such thing as a perfect family Christmas – and this year, the contrast with reality versus fantasy couldn’t be more stark.
Everything looks gorgeous, from the “super sweet crafts” to the special baked biscuits, but no matter how hard she tries to sugar-coat Christmas as a family dream celebration, the truth is that both her and her husband’s sides of the family are estranged. And since her father is in the hospital in the Philippines, we learned that she can’t even find his phone number to contact him.
Meanwhile, for Harry’s part, the couple have not spent Christmas with the royal family since 2018, making it the seventh year in a row they have been absent from the Sandringham ceremony. Family relations are likely to become more strained following Harry’s appearance last week Late Show with Stephen Colbert In the US, where he auditioned himself for the role of a “Christmas Prince” in a Hallmark-style TV movie.
Meghan and her father, Thomas Markle, 81, have been estranged since before her marriage to Prince Harry. While Meghan was presenting a show putting family and love at the center of Christmas, her father was pleading and asking her from his hospital bed following the amputation of his left leg below the knee. To see him “one more time before he dies”.
Instead of facing reality in a way that might actually help other people deal with difficult family dynamics at Christmas, Meghan is busy putting glue on the cracks.
As soon as I watched Meghan walk through a Christmas tree farm in search of the perfect 9-foot tree with the twinkling music of The Beach Boys’ holiday song “Little St. Nick,” I got excited. This brought back strong memories.
My family used to listen to The Beach Boys when we went to Cornwall in our Peugeot estate every summer – before we all dramatically split up. That means that, like Meghan and Harry, I too am separated from my entire family this Christmas, and that is heart-crushing, not joyous in any way.
Meghan’s father told mail on sunday He He dreams of seeing son-in-law Prince Harry and grandchildren Archie and Lilibet “before it’s too late”. Although Meghan claims she reached out to her ailing father following serious health concerns, her father says he was not listened to.
The reality is that Meghan may have to invite the film crew back for Christmas Day to boost numbers, as apart from her mother, Doria Ragland, there is very little family around.
I know how it feels. This year, I’m going to the north of England to meet my late partner’s family, who I’ve adopted as my family, because my own family has broken up. I have been estranged from my three half-siblings and their families since we were completely left out of my late father’s will after his death in July 2024 – and things had already become difficult enough before his death, when I was their sole carer.
Watching Meghan’s Netflix show rubs salt into the wound. Just as scrolling through a perfectly curated Instagram feed can lead to “comparison and despair” in others, so too has his Christmas special. This promotes negative feelings of not measuring up and makes people feel isolated. It sets unrealistic standards of the “perfect” life and unattainable ideals. It can promote jealousy, self-doubt, anxiety, and depression.
The bitter truth is that many people like me, and indeed him, are preparing themselves to celebrate Christmas in the presence of a few relatives.
It’s sad for my nine- and seven-year-old daughters to not have relationships with their cousins, as Archie and Lilibet will soon find out. Breaking from dysfunctional family dynamics – whether it’s over money, sibling rivalry, or difficulties adapting to another family’s ways – is difficult.
It’s great to be a hostess with most of the time, but it’s meaningless if it’s all a task — or at least accept that significant others will be missing at many tables this year.
The reason Meghan is so much of a show jar is that fawning over baubles and crudite platters like a Stepford wife feels like a distraction from a deeper truth.
I understand that there may be caution in her relationship with her father; An understandable concern that whatever she does will be wrong or a distorted version of it will make the front pages. But while she keeps herself busy with her perfect handmade festivities, an important part of the Christmas story is missing from her story. And this is what makes many of us feel so awkward about struggling with our own broken families.
Sorry, but I can’t buy Meghan a Christmas. Real connection comes from truth, not hand-painted biscuits.